


Convergence

by soughtstory



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: F/M, Islands, Mythology - Freeform, Religion, other tags TBA
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-10-14 14:20:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10538280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soughtstory/pseuds/soughtstory
Summary: and if there was more blood to be found, Gon didn't know. canon divergence from after Greed Island and before the Chimera Ant arc. multiple ocs present and oc based. multi-chapter fic.





	1. IN THE BEGINNING

**Author's Note:**

> so, this is an idea that i've had for a good looooong while, and when i began this, there was legitimately only a skeleton of a plot, hardly any exploration into the other characters, little diversity and overall, just a bland idea from a small marble. now though, writing it out and even though it's only the first chapter, it's blossoming into something i never thought possible. despite the slowness of the first two or three chapters, i hope this will really take off when i get to write more and more chapters.
> 
> as for a warning, yes, there'll be possible blood/gore/combat, as well as mentions of deadly sickness. this is also an oc dependent fic, so if that doesn't float your boat, you may wanna scoot. and for those looking for a disclaimer, well ... ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

**_chapter one_    
** _in the beginning_

* * *

When Killua reaches the bathroom mirror, he maps himself.

Watches how every curve, every twist of muscle and bone and atom make him up, this little pocket of space with stories to tell. His hands find his throat, cups it with tremors in his fingers like he is made of shattered tea-cup, as if there is no life under this pipeline. _Here,_ where Gon anchored himself and sunlight bled from his tongue, he remembers. His eyes find his shoulders, two dense mountains under a blanket of silken soft snow, how they look more broken than stone beneath the fluttering, open-and-closing mouth of the bathroom light. _Here,_ where Kurapika placed his hands and told him 'nightmares are nightmares if you let them.' Finally, he finds his face. Finds where horror has constructed a cheekbone with sharp fingers, where horse-fright fear has carved out eyes that now see things that he hadn't before. _Here,_ Leorio had pressed his hand to muffle his childish cries of what to eat for dinner half a year ago, bumbling, indignant laughter in his breastbone.

He follows this mountain trail, jumps the cobble stones of the inside of his arm, follows the swallow of his ribs and the canyons of his fingers, where Gon had laid to rest worries, stories of islands shaped like whales, myths and legends of a life lived in sunlight. He can still feel the tattoos of where his hands lay, when sleep dragged them together for a few hours a night, where no one could find them caught together like twirling vines. Endlessly caught up in each other, even if their roots are spread miles apart.

So he only believes it is right, when he exits the bathroom in a billowing of steam and fluorescence, to ask _what is the matter with Gon_. Gon's legs swing, two pendulums in motion, off the edge of the hotel bed, socked feet brushing the carpet in their movements. His head is down, staring at the unused _accompany_ card he had gathered, smuggled behind the facade of _patch of shore_ in the Two Towers after Greed Island. A clever idea by a blissfully ignorant boy.

"Gon," Killua breathes, and the world seems to rush to attention in Gon, "what's wrong?"

"Nothing, Killua," Gon says, tapping out stars with the sheer weight of his smile on his features. Killua doesn't miss the tightening, the coil of fingers around the plastic that swallowed _nen_ once upon a time. The flinch of a frown or a smile across drawstring lips. His brow shudders, wrenches wrinkles over the pair as he stares at Gon, trying to predict the unpredictable.

There's a standstill for a moment; Gon waiting for accusation, Killua waiting for confession. Then, suddenly, the air leaves his lungs and he hobbles, slightly sore feet from walking miles pushing him forwards until the edge of the bed touches the backs of his knees, fingers massaging away the blossoming of phantom pain in the balls of his feet. Killua shrugs, the ache seemingly more important than Gon's words. "Well, can we talk about the towers then? I mean, you could have used _accompany_ to find Ging, but you didn't. You could have found someone who knew him, but you didn't. What you _did_ do," and he enunciates, because Gon is a world away, caught in someone else's voice, a voice found in a box sealed by _nen,_ "is make us walk around four miles until we found a boat out of there, wait a few days then walk _another_ four miles to the nearest town, then scramble together a few hundred jenny to spend a night here. You almost sold _paladin's necklace_ to stay for one night."

He peers up from where the pain begins to secede, when Gon finds his eyes again. They aren't filled with the sadness, or the pain, he had expected from not going after Ging instantly. Not even disappointment. Instead, there is a curl of hesitation, of a shyness to Gon's character he hasn't found looking at him before. He stops massaging his feet.

"Well, _uhhh,_ " his fingers scratch at his cheek, a mindless habit that once, when nervousness had chewed away at most of his confidence, had scored red welts downwards on the honey-glazed skin. He hadn't noticed until the scarlet had blossomed into pain at dawn. "I wasn't _really_ going to sell it. The guy just looked interested and I was showing him and he didn't really _want_ the jenny anyways, but -"

"You're rambling."

"Ah, sorry Killua," soft laughter exits his throat, no longer the weighted ambivalence he had been before in his mouth. That, alone, is what makes Killua slump against the wall. "The thing is, when I said I wanted to meet Ging, I _do._ But I want him to meet _everyone,_ especially you! But, the only way I can do that is by calling Leorio and Kurapika."

"And you don't wanna bother them."

It isn't an admittance at all when Gon shakes his head; Killua had expected it. He knew Gon breathed unholy kindness, an affinity to include everything that occupied his heart into one place, one doorway. Even if the frame creaked, even if the door snapped off his hinges - Gon would bring everything and everyone he loved to the doorway. So Killua smiled softly, a gentle thing that only Gon got to see when night time wormed it's hands between their ribs, pulled covers over their rattle-snake hearts and told them it was time to be still, to no longer race for a few more hours.

His arms cross, head tilted up towards the ceiling. With the few jenny they'd had left over, Gon had begged for something of a souvenir to take home, something he could remember Greed Island by. So, he'd brought glow in the dark stars, because Gon's _nen_ had reminded him of a supernova, a star falling to pieces as the days wore on. And he'd told him to wait, to take them home and stick them wherever he wanted too in his room at Mito-san and Grandma Abe's home; but Gon was excitable. They'd be yelled at by the hotel staff, be forced to shove their remaining jenny their way to pay for the damage a few jelly stars would leave behind but -

Killua looked at the stars, then looked at Gon. "I don't think they'd mind."

It is worth it when the light returns to the other. "Really? You think so?"

"Mm. They won't mind if it's you. Though, you may have to persuade Kurapika. He's gonna be the tough one; but if you can snag Leorio away from his studies, Kurapika may just listen."

"Wow! Thanks, Killua!" Gon hooks himself around Killua's neck, sends them tumbling in a billowing of pillows and hotel duvets. Laughter explodes, laughter becomes static in Killua's ears as they lay, a tumble of flower stems, across the bed sheets.

"Idiot! Get _off!_ "

* * *

"Leorio!"

"Gon!" There is a smattering of skeptical looks around the quad thrown towards him, and Leorio ducks, becomes a curled in piece of paper under their hot-poker stares. Red dusts itself across his features and he hunkers closer. "Alright, I did it. What's up?"

It is worth the humiliation when he is rewarded with a giggle, a bumbling of happiness at the realization Leorio had done as Gon had asked; shout his name with the ferocity he had shouted his. His fingers flex around the phone, the cold biting away at them but he doesn't mind, the panini he's acquired is warmth enough other than Gon.

"Do you want to come to Pangaea?"

"What are you doing in Pangaea?" a mouthful of ham and cheese blocks his words, a muffling that Gon doesn't reply to instantly until he repeats it, and there's a pause before, "you're not even in Pangaea, are you?"

"Not yet, but Killua and I are going there right now. _Say hi, Killua!_ "

Something crackles. Something rustles. _"Hi old man."_

"Oi! Don't be rude," he scolds, but it is punctuated with laughter, a fondness he hasn't quite been able to quench when the phone is released back to it's owner, filled with amusement at the exchange of pleasantries between the two. Leorio shuffles on his seat, scarf billowing slightly in the autumn breath. "So, why are you going to Pangaea then?"

"Well, Killua said it's a pretty good place to cash up on a lot of jenny," and this is what captures him, causes him to sit up slightly, "and it's full of people from loads of different places and it's apparently lots of fun! And we wanted you and Kurapika to join us before we asked you."

"Asked us what?"

"If you wanted to go meet Ging with Killua and me."

"Really?" Even if the money aspect had caught his interest, had grappled him into a sitting position, he almost topples back into the gushing mouth of the fountain in shock and, strangely, fierce pride. "Are you sure? I thought this was just a Killua and you thing."

_"It was meant to be!"_

" _Killua!_ I wanted Ging to meet all my friends; so, do you want to come?"

He feels far warmer, awash with fatherly amusement at the gaggle of excited voices on the other end of the phone, when he says "when do we leave?"

* * *

"Gon."

"Kurapika!"

"Are you well? How was Greed Island?"

"It was great! We made loads of friends; Killua and I met Wing's former nen teacher, Bisky - she'd _really_ like you, I think - and we played some dodgeball and -"

"That sounds exciting."

"It was!"

"Good, I'm glad; but, I may need to leave in a moment, so I-"

"Oh, wait, _please,_ " and it is the whine, the soft consistent scroll of his voice through the phone that causes the blond to stop, to still his earthquake hands. "I wanted to ask you something."

"Very well."

"Do you want to come to Pangaea next week? On the Tuesday?"

"I...I-I don't know Gon, I have a lot of work to do and a mess that isn't completely cleaned up yet, maybe-"

"Leorio's coming."

"You got Leorio to take a break from his studies?"

"He was already on break. Plus, it's meant to be lots of fun there and there's people from all over gathering every day! You love learning about new cultures, don't you? We wanted you to have some fun before we asked you."

"That's true. And Melody _has_ said my condition will only worsen from after Yorknew, so - wait a moment, ask me _what,_ exactly?"

"If you wanted to come and meet Ging with us?"

"I wasn't aware I was invited, initially."

"Of course you are!"

_"This idiot only just thought it up."_

" _Killua!_ Don't listen to him Kurapika."

"Heh, alright. Are you sure though?"

"Uh!"

"...Alright, I'll be there."

"Really? Ah, thank you Kurapika!"

He can't stop the flow of a smile onto his mouth. "Anything for you, Gon."

* * *

Pangaea is an explosion of colour, a ticking time-bomb of smells and people that they've never had the chance to inspect, to fold their minds around and understand. Languages they haven't heard crackle in their ears, the pavement feels smooth and the wind rides a fierce current around the market. Children scatter, shriek with rat-tailed excitement at a game of hide-n-seek, mothers ringing up shopping in a clicking of words.

Immediately, Gon is enraptured. He can taste the salt from the sea, feel the wind dig it's fingers into his hair and as always, speeds forwards with Killua to watch his back. Halfway through touring the city, he turns back to Killua, halfway between a laugh and a yell. "Killua? Are you keeping up?"

"Of course I am, dummy. You're so slow and loud, _Leorio_ could track you."

"He won't appreciate you saying that."

Killua flicks Gon on the forehead, a pleased smile forming when he yelps. "Then don't tell him."

After a few moments of rubbing, of pressing the short, soft pain back into a deeper part of him, their feet soon guided them through hidden streets, across the overhanging lips of houses, across window ledges and washing lines, strung up like veins between their arteries. As they studied, as they absorbed the skeleton of this city built from the homes of people from across the world, they talked. And they listened.

"So...Killua, why do so many people come here? I've only seen big crowds like this when there's a mob meeting, like back in Yorknew."

"That's because this is the site of the collision, I think," Killua comments, body slicing through the air as the rolling teeth of his skateboard clatter, glide across picked-apart rooftops and gravel; before he can speak again, he hits an upended slate and launches a few centimeters into the air, before landing. The bounce does nothing to shake him, landing on the wheels of his skateboard. "Apparently, when the world was formed, Pangaea was a full country, but the earth's crust was weak around it 'cause it sits on the equator," and to help, Killua lays his hands parallel and facing each other, moving them closer and closer until one slides over the other, so Gon understands what he says, "and because it was so weak, the earth's crust broke, forming an earthquake. It broke Pangaea; forming it into three small islands which, over the years, grew further apart. But, another tremor caused them to reverse their polarity, and it brought them back together, causing the collision."

"Wow," Gon murmurs, starry-eyed by such a story. Somewhere, in the deepest corners he hasn't tried to scrub at yet, he remembers a Whale island tale Mito-san had whispered to him in the dead of night. Neither of them were meant to be up; Mito-san was only a girl of seventeen and Gon a child of six, but oh, how lovingly she spoke of how the Gods had tied ribbons to each corner of the earth's rocks that formed their countries and one day, when the time would be right, would bring them back together and call it home. Although Grandma Abe caught them, giggling in the glow of torch light, she couldn't scold them, only chalk it up to an old myth's tale.

"Killua, how do you know all this?"

"I _read,_ that's why."

"I bet you're a genius."

"Shut up; and watch it!" Killua's skateboard clatters as he halts, clutches a desperate hand around Gon's arm as he steps up to the jutted parapet of a rooftop's edge. Gon laughs away the danger, as always, and Killua is left to scrape up the jumbled pieces of his heart again, before recommending they scale the building downwards and walk on foot. The air density made their heads light anyways, spilling compliments so only the wind would hear.

It isn't long before they come to the heart of the city; a miniature festival producing dragons, dancers with bells, stalls of sweets that has Killua's blood popping in his ears. Colors blur into each other, and only because they have a tight hold on each other do they find them, a pretty girl trying to coerce them into joining a dance where they'd hang bells around their heads, already trying to slide some onto Leorio's blackthorn hair.

They're only saved by the sudden appearance of Gon, as he leaps over a pair of men crouched to tie their laces in tandem, to slam into Leorio's stomach in a billowing of laughter. It punches the air out of him, but the girl leaves with a soft, knowing smile and tries to wrangle the two men Gon had leaped over into the dance.

For that, Leorio is thankful, and squeezes Gon close.

"You came!"

"We said we would," answers Kurapika, and slides his arms wider, a gentle invite for the boy to fall into him, inhale the wood smoke and ink he has become accustomed too over the last two years. Kurapika's fingers dig into his hair, smooth away the errant strands that jut out of place and laughs when they fall further from their perch. A thumb glides it's way over the swell of his cheek bone, copper eyes finding a place along his features. "You look slimmer. Have you been eating?"

"Have _you?_ "

"...Don't tell Leorio."

This earns the Kurta a soft gasp of amusement, and he free's the child back into Killua's care as he's released from a bear hug. The sight causes him to snort behind his hand, watching how Killua smooths away the wrinkles of his shirt as if they are anything but loved.

"So, you ready to get caught up in that mess?" Leorio jerks his head back towards the cacophony, the symphony of lives intertwined in one, fluid motion. They stamp stars from the pavement, tap out constellations as their feet bang in tandem, as bells alight the return of their bodies to the music. Gon and Killua watch in fascination; Kurapika's feet are already mimicking a box step that circles the fountain.

Gon looks at Leorio, unhooking his thumbs from his bag straps. "Definitely."

* * *

The day pulls to a soft close, drags the sunlight back to it's corner in exchange for the moon's aching return. It isn't bloated, not even properly in the sky but peering, shyly, across the ridges that circle the valley Pangaea is found in. And Gon is hanging his legs from the window sill, propped against the wall like a tired flower stem, wilting at the waist. He watches softly at the moon, how it grows to form something you can sleep peacefully beside.

He looks at Killua, half thrown over the bed they'll share. He smiles at the way the moon glow bounces between the whites of him, turning him into starlight. "Today was fun, right, Killua?"

"Yeah, definitely," mischief makes a home out of him in a moment, pulling himself up by the elbows to make a shark grin at the other. " _Especially_ when Leorio and that old lady fell o-"

"Shut up!" A pillow comes sailing as Leorio exits the bathroom, towel ruffling away the wetness to his hair, fingers half curled from where the pillow left his grasp. It doesn't hit it's target, and falls uselessly from it's perch but it is enough for the elder male, who settles back into his own bed across the room, drowsiness pulling at his worn muscles as the dark hours approach.

Gon and Killua laugh, and Gon deposits himself, almost gingerly onto the edge of his bed. Any of the exuberance left over from the day had diminished, switched for a soft, unspoken anxiousness that Killua is too tired for, and Leorio's glasses are caught beneath the bed sheets, fingers itching around for them to bother paying attention to the way Gon's shoulders cave, become a shell slightly in his awkwardness. So it only leaves Kurapika, to slot the pieces together.

He does it by closing his book. He does it by turning himself slightly, and catching amber frosted eyes. "Gon?"

They'd danced around the subject all day, had tiptoed at it's corners as if stepping into it would cause the world to cave in, for avalanches to become real in soft bodies. It's a large favor, an honor for them to be invited to meet Ging finally, but even with all the excitement Gon has caught in the nets of him, like fish wriggling free of his fingers, he is still scared that he is not worthy. That when he catches Ging's eyes, somehow, he knows that he won't be seeing the father, the man - but the hunter and all his disappointment in his unworthiness.

His head snaps up, the static in him gone silent at Kurapika's voice and he smiles, half filled with teeth and sleep as he yawns, settles back against the bed of Killua's propped up legs. The moon plays shadows here, where night runs deep and cuts out the muscles of his calf, the itchiness of his toes as they flex and curl into the bed sheets beneath him.

"Ne, Kurapika, are you sure you all want to go?"

How innocence frames his jaw with such a sentence, all toed-in fear and knee-tucked, childish hope rooted in him, Kurapika doesn't know. His eyebrows rise, and Leorio seems to jerk to attention. A soft look is passed between them, worry caught, and he doesn't miss how Killua doesn't jerk, doesn't stumble to speak over the words and let the sound swallow them.

From that, Kurapika knows Gon needs to talk this out, release the stubborn thorn of hesitation in his chest. "What made you ask this?"

"I'm not saying I don't want you guys to come! No, no - I just...what if I'm not ready to meet Ging, or it takes way longer for me to find him than I thought?" he drags his words to a standstill, a breath of air rushing through his teeth. Among the water reeds of it, Kurapika hopes the thorn has come loose. "I don't wanna be a burden on you all; you've got other things you should be doing."

"Yeah, but this is something we wanna do with you, Gon," Leorio is a stride of starlight into the murky depths the room has been plunged in, a beam that Gon basks in when he smiles, thumb delving into his chest with the smile on his mouth. From here, Kurapika knows that the thorn has lost it's perch. "You're so determined to find Ging, you'll do anything. And we want to be right there next to you when you do. So don't underestimate us!"

"Besides, Gon," Kurapika nods at the child, who flicks his gaze back to him, the edges of his mouth plucked upwards in adoration. "Ging should meet _all_ your family, right?"

This makes the boy blink, pure bewilderment scoring itself into his features before in one, fluid wave his mouth breaks into a grin, head a bobbing of exuberance. It makes Kurapika's heart swell and drum it's fingers across the inside of his ribs.

Behind him, Killua nudges his foot into the violin chord of the boy's spine, head tilted and hair masking the soft, starlight smile on his features. Gon reciprocates and jumps to his feet, laughing as Leorio digs his hands into his hair to mess up the careful spikes.

When he looks to Kurapika, his hands fold into determined rocks. "Uh! In that case..."

But as he reaches for the drawer which houses the card, the doorway to Ging, a shrill shriek breaks the silence and it's captives. Leorio jumps, hands thrown wide in a preemptive attack that has pain shooting through his fingers when he comes into contact with a bed post, and Kurapika cannot stop the laughter that bleeds over his tongue at the sight. Behind Gon, Killua digs into his pocket.

"Gon, _uh,_ it's Mito-san."

"Eh?" Gon turns, mouth framed into a confused oval, hands reaching for the phone. "Wonder why she's calling at this time."

"Probably nothing important, just to wish you goodnight."

"Yeah, hopefully." With that, he put the receiver to his ear.


	2. THERE IS LOVE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: so i guess it's kinda obvious where this chapter is gonna go particularly ? I'm not sure if it's some massive shock or anything, but i kinda like this chapter from how I got to explore some of the characters, particularly Mito-san. Also, I based a part of Grandma Abe's character off some of my aunt, some psychic tendencies in there that hopefully, give her a few more dimensions.

  ** _chapter two  
_** _there is love_

* * *

"Gon?"

"Mito-san," his body bends into the edge of the mattress, arms thrown back by his head as he listens for the tremors, the warning signs of Mito-san's heart in her throat, sitting on her vocal chords. "It's nice to hear from you!"

A soft laugh rattles in his ear, turns his mind back to the summers of Whale Island and a girl of only twenty calling him home. "Me too, my dear. Are you well; Killua called and told me you were in the Pangaea district today."

Brows frame shock, turning upwards into his hairline before turning to eye the boy, who settles beneath his covers with a phone screen lighting up his features. It turns him paler, the white light, hair in wild strands that frame him like a star sits on his shoulders. His smile widens, and he turns back to the woman he has called aunt. "Yeah! It's really fun here; there's lots of people to meet."

And although he knows Mito-san knows no _nen,_ that her only magic is earth magic in the mouths of roses, a small patch in front of their home, he swears that she has pressed some over his chest when she speaks. "Good; your adventure sounds wonderful. Grandma said you'd be fine, her and her tarot cards and all."

"Mito-san," he repeats, and with all the blissful ignorance in his stubborn heart strings, he sounds so old with wisdom in his mouth, "you didn't call to ask me how I've been; I know you. Do you miss me?"

"I _always_ miss you," she bites off instantly, the stubbornness Gon has been bred with in her flesh. He is a familiar ache, the distant rattle in her charred bones and a constant yearning for the child not hers, but _hers._ Did she not _raise_ him, bring him into the world when his father had left him in her young-girl arms? Was she not _enough_ of family for him? "I just...Gon, you must come home, my dear."

"Eh!?" At this, Gon's slack body becomes rigid, a bean stalk in it's growth. He startles Kurapika from between the pages of his book, who delved in again when their words had been interrupted by the phone. Leorio is already deep in sleep, awash with the tides that sink him, swallow him into the murk of dreams. He does not stir at Gon's yell. "Mito-san, _why?_ "

The whine causes her teeth to chatter, jaw set to stone in a flurry back on Whale island, whilst Gon's heart is confused. Whilst his heart tries to scramble back together, begging it not to be true - that his adventure is about to close the pages on it's book, even when he is not finished writing it. Even when he has not yet found Ging.

"I...I can't say, my dear. This is really something you have to be present for."

"Y-Yes you can! Just say it!"

"Gon..." a soft sigh slots between her teeth, before there is a rustling of movement on the end of the phone. And Gon, with honeyed eyes and bronze skin and a heart that has faced assassins and bombs in his blood, is suddenly scared with whoever else may have reached over and plucked the damaged, wired house phone from Mito-san's knobbly fingertips, turned old from gardening and plucking.

" _Gon!_ Are you arguing with your aunt Mito? When she says to come home, you come ho - _no Mito, I will not be_ delicate _with the boy_ \- you listen to your aunt!"

" _H-Hai,_ Grandma Abe!" from beside him, Killua descends into glazed laughter, body a curl of giggles over the edge of the bed at the sudden fear that shoots thorns up Gon's spine. His mouth forms a firm line, eyes wide with the tell-tale curl of discipline. Grandmother Abe, with hands that reared two young boys into adulthood, a heart that survived wars and famine before Gon was even born, and a mind sharper than the hooks of his fishing lure - this woman was a sandstorm in mortal flesh, and Gon was fond of breathing.

A short snuffle alerted him to her acceptance of his response, and in the rustle, Gon kicked at Killua whose laughter had failed to disappear, a whine in his words. But his attention snapped back, Mito-san's words bringing him home once again.

"You heard your Grandmother. You're coming home, Gon."

"You'll tell me when I get there?"

And Mito-san, known as the girl who brought up a child, the woman who loved with every atom in her for the boy with honey for skin, is struck by the words. _Oh,_ how she wished that he didn't have to come home, despite every sound inside her calling him back to her. "Of _course_ I will."

"Okay, love you."

"See you soon." His fingers thumb at the end call button, stuttering across the keypad afterwards, as if he is trying to wipe away the remnants of the call. He stares for a moment, and his heart nestles at the base of his esophagus, hopes dashed at the precipice of finally meeting his father. Softly, he undoes the knot in his chest, tries to understand what could have his aunt so rattled that she calls him back to an island in a circle of fish.

He doesn't notice how Killua crawls from between the blankets, legs creaking as they bend over the softened tongue of cotton. Pale fingers pad over to the boy, before he ties himself into a knot beside him, elbow propped against his knee as he watches the fire in Gon's eyes diminish slightly, the way his mouth folds at the corner, a soft admittance of a battle lost. It almost makes Killua smile - Mito-san _always_ wins.

"Do you have to go home?"

Bronzed fingers scratch at his jaw. "Yeah, she sounded really worried about something. I hope she's okay."

"Guess I kinda jinxed it, right?" Killua's jaw frames strange guilt, and Gon laughs, worming his sunbeams between his teeth so that the pale boy doesn't blame himself for the stalling of this adventure. He _knows_ Killua; has him mapped like the back of his hand and the clockwork of his veins and the boat ride home. He knows him like he knows the sea around his Whale island, like he knows the dusted corners of Ging's solid, single picture, always in his back pocket.

And so he shakes his head, mouth a wide cavern of abundant love for the boy, because he knows that he believes that the smallest things can change a life. That the wrong direction can lead you somewhere beautiful. That a piece of light in a dark forest can bring anyone home.

"Not your fault, Killua. Just circumstances," then, suddenly, as if the world has blossomed in him, Gon gasps and wrings stardust from his bones with the sound. He grins, wild and without forethought or parameter, just as his bleeding heart always allows. "Hey, you should come with me!"

"E-Eh? What are you talking about?"

"You should come back to Whale island with me; Kurapika and Leorio too!" At this, Kurapika's head lifts, shaking himself out of a world constructed of labyrinths and puzzles and hieroglyphics, "I mean, Mito-san and Grandma Abe miss _you_ lots, and they'd love to meet you guys! And I can show you around my home, and the best places to catch fish and _all_ the cool hiding spots where the animals live."

He frames his question-not-question at the blond, leaning forwards over his knees, knuckles white as they grip at the bed sheets in his excitement. Behind him, the sky has been swallowed by midnight, the sunset long since fell asleep. Behind him, stars blot across the sky, the milky way a far off corner of the landscape and here, where this room sits, has the perfect view that shrouds Gon in white, in midnight breath.

It causes Kurapika to smile, to stamp down the edges of himself that flare with the need to _work,_ to _find,_ to _avenge._ A few more days couldn't hurt, especially if spent in the house where Gon learned love.

"I would be honored to meet your aunt and grandmother, Gon."

In his excitement, Gon throws his arms high, legs kicking out with his voice. " _Banzai,_ I knew it!"

"Alright, we'll leave tomorrow, find out what your aunt wants and then go find Ging," Killua constructs his words carefully, nodding at Gon to make sure the boy is following and when he nods back, he grins, satisfied with the answer. He plucks his phone from where it has been discarded among the bed sheets in favor of Gon's side, fingers tapping out a rhythm. "Should I order tickets?"

"Yeah; we can go tomorrow."

Kurapika shuts off his bedside light after he speaks, book finding a place among the edges of paperwork he still has left to finish. As the light dies, it illuminates the hollows of his cheek, the sharpness of his nose for one last time before they fall asleep."Alright, I'll tell Leorio of the change of plans in the morning."

* * *

"Mito, stop pacing," fingers gnarled by working the land, by cooking for her children, press down on the deck of cards, picking five from it's mouth and laying them across from her, pausing with her fingers across the spine of the second in front of her. Her eyes close, but she knows that in the corner of the room, sage and vanilla burn bright, to ease her granddaughter's frantic mind.

"I can't, I...I never thought -"

"It's not good for the blood flow."

Grandma Abe turns over the second card, the first a sight of an upright two of wands. The sight makes her smile, and the second is an upright six of cups. "I _know,_ but _Gon;_ oh, the poor boy. I can't imagine how he'll -"

" ** _Sit._** " And it is in these moments, this little detour from life's larger problems, that Mito-san is reminded of her grandmother's wisdom, the tooth ache of old age in her soul. She is reminded of how she tricks young men into believing her frail and old, spine a corkscrew of pain and moth-chewed holes - but she has lifted generations on her back. This strength is what makes Mito-san sit, head lowered like the obedience of the child she'd once been again.

Her head finds her hands, the sanctuary of their coolness against her brow and sighs, lets all her fear rush out of her in one breath of wind. In front of her, Grandmother Abe turns over her third card. A reversed seven of wands greets her weary eyes.

"You're telling his fortune aren't you?"

"Yes, though it's hardly accurate without the complete physical connection to bounce off," she gestures vaguely towards her other arm, where a pair of gloves resides. Already, against the mottled grain of the table top, Mito-san can see the carefully pulled open holes of them, the tell-tale scratches on them from previous winters, caught by fish hooks and rocks whilst climbing. The sight makes her smile, remembering days when Gon came home, swaddled in knee-skinned blood and stories of beasts.

"Will you tell me it?"

"No."

The word is fleeting, caught in the wind's recesses and Mito groans, information denied to her aching heart. Even if her body has stilled, has ceased it's petulant dance of _what will I say to him,_ she is still swallowing the knot of her vocal chords, the rattle-snake shudder of her lungs. It commands her and pushes her, telling her to _move, move, move_ with the tide before he comes home, before she has to see the shock on his face as she untucks, carefully, what his father never told him. What his father never left behind.

So she stands. So she glides to the counter, throws the fridge door open and searches. For something to do. For something to eat. Anything to rid her mind of the motions she will go through, the way she will break it to him when he arrives.

"If you're going to pace again -"

" _No,_ I'm making something to eat. He'll be hungry by the time he arrives; besides, it'll be dinnertime for us all and I...I want to be ready." She carries a tray of cheese and spice, tomatoes rolling sideways as she carefully tries to deposit it onto the counter. Already, she digs for the tooth of a knife, the curved tongue of a spoon to separate the soft cheese and place it into the frying pan, along with the spices and vegetables she plans to add with the noodles.

As she chips away at the tomato, scores marks along it's body and then places it in boiling water - a cooking technique called _blanching,_ her mind provides - she peers at her grandmother, who gathers the cards and shuffles, placing three before her this time. "Besides, I need something to distract myself. I can't be sitting around."

"I know," the tone her grandmother uses is soft, and it reminds her of when she was young. When she didn't have to worry about taking care of her cousin's son, when her grandmother was the only parental figure within the house. Silence fills the room, both lost in something other than the matter at hand, until, "so, where is she?"

"Gathering firewood, I believe. It'll take her a couple of hours, maybe until sundown to get back here, because she wanted to get the better firewood for tonight."

Behind her, Grandmother Abe's voice croaks with laughter, reserved with adoration. "She's a helpful one isn't she, Mito?"

"Yes, she is."

"Did you send her out that far so that she wouldn't see him before you got the chance to talk with him?"

At this, the knife clatters to the floor with a fumbling of fingers and Mito has been taught not to catch a falling knife. It is a rule. It is a means of safety within these walls. But _oh,_ if she wasn't part of a family with good intentions and cut off fingers. "Of course not! She...offered. I think she knows that, if she were here when he arrives that it'd be...complicated," and here, she presses her hands into the counter, leans forwards and closes her eyes. Smells the vanilla and sage, the spices, the wild outdoors. Somewhere, out there, Gon is coming home. "I don't blame her, just so you know. I'm uh, still in shock myself. It's a big thing to hear."

"Ah, but Gon has seen and heard worst things than this, my love. You worry about him too much."

"He's the only child I have, Grandma," she bites and then swallows, the look her grandmother sends her over the turning of the three cards; a collection of the major arcana set. An ace, a tower and a world card, all upright and in order, watch the two as they speak.

She shuffles the rest of the pack, head tilting and mouth pulled wide into a smile. "You know as well as I that that is far from the truth, my love."

She doesn't notice the blood on her hand until after, and how it marks the black granite top of the kitchen counter. And she is halfway through pressing a cloth to the counter when the door is knocked, loud and heart-achingly familiar. For a moment, she almost thinks Ging's been brought home by the tides.

She looks up. "Grandma, Gon's home!"

A floor above there is a stumble of movement as the old woman comes to greet her traveler of a great-grandson, with the east wind in his hair and the southern sea in his ribs. Even if her bones ache and her body is tired, slumping further towards the ground than she'd like - she is determined to remind her grandson why this house is called a home.

However, Mito-san's fingers say otherwise than to the quick steps of her grandmother. They stutter in place, find that the earth isn't still in her, that years of weeding and pulling flowers into the world has yet to teach her how to be careful and kind. That discipline is not always the way to unfurl the petals of something careful.

But when she opens the door, all doubts ink away, and she is left staring at sunlight in a bottle. A boy that looks so much like her beloved cousin she can't bare to scare him, and opens her arms wide for him to fall into her. As her grandmother comments, Mito-san can surely smell the wind in his hair as she brings him to her breast, presses her face into the strands and smooths a few fingers over the edges of his temple.

"Welcome home, my Gon."

"I missed you, Mito-san!" He remarks and she swears, he is a splintering ball of light, dousing her in a love she isn't sure sometimes that she deserves, that she must've done something strangely right in another, forgotten life to acquire. His gaze turns from her, and his locked hands disappear from around her waist to tackle his grandmother into a hug. "Grandma Abe!"

"Careful, I'm old, my dear!" she tucks her great-grandson closer, laughing into his shoulder. And this is when Mito-san turns to the doorway, finds the collection of boys huddled against the frame, unsure whether to step in or not; and even though her heart stutters, that there may be more witnesses to this revelation, she can only sigh. Of course, Gon would find more people to love on his adventures.

She approaches the three and her mouth forms a toothy smile, and she pats Killua's downy curls. "It's nice to see you again Killua, we missed you terribly," the woman's smile widens at the blush that settles across hollowed cheekbones, the mumbled response as he looks away from her. Her gaze turns upwards, to find the blond and the doctor, waiting to speak.

Kurapika begins. "I'm -"

"You're Kurapika, and you're Leorio. I-I'm sorry, Gon just speaks about you so fondly in the letters he sends home," she admonishes, watching the pleased and embarrassed aura settle on their shoulders. Leorio giggles, scratches his fingers across the base of his neck at her words, and Kurapika can only shake his head. The woman steps aside, opens the door wider. "Please, come inside."

"Thank you, your home's lovely," Kurapika compliments as the door closes, and Leorio is poking at a few stray knick-knacks, spread across the ledge of a small bookcase as Gon talks amicably with his family. Across the bookcase are two drivers licenses, paperwork, a few handbooks on gardening and paused on the top of them, at the place of honor, is a young Ging's photograph. It is old, yellowed with age and dust around the corners, but it is lovingly surrounded by the edges of their honest life. At this, Leorio smiles affectionately.

"My, you're a large one aren't you."

The voice comes from below him, far below his shoulder blades and this startles the man, causing him to bump against the book case and the photo of Ging to fall face-forwards. A garbled apology splinters through his teeth as he tries to right his wrongs, cursing his startled nature. But laughter only greets him, curled with old age and wisdom that reminds him of his mother.

When he looks down, the creased, smiling face of Grandma Abe finds him. "Come down here, young one."

Leorio obeys, bending his knees and leaning on the balls of his feet to look the woman in the eye. Knobbled fingers take hold of his tie, crumpled and awkward from fumbling hands as he rushed to get ready after a long flight and drive to Whale Island. She undoes the shoddy work, and folds it back together as she talks. "You're one of the boys that has been taking care of my Gon all this time, aren't you?"

"W-Well, I guess, Abe-san. Though, that title is really reserved to Killua."

"Abe is fine, and put your arms down," she murmurs, flapping a hand downwards so he lowers his wandering hands which scratch at the crown of his head. She hands him the smaller length of the tie, working on the longer. "And I don't think that's entirely true. Yes, he's been travelling with Killua, but you've always been only a phone call away for him, haven't you?"

"Yes, always." She takes the smaller end of the tie from him, tucks it like she was taught by her mother, and her mother before her. She pats the family history into the knot she's made, her old hands framing his gentle heart.

"For that, I thank you, Leorio. You have a home here whenever you like."

"T-Thank you, very much," he clambers for words as he bows his head, a quick informal way to show his gratitude, but she smiles all the same and totters off, to pull Killua into a deep hug. The child squeaks, but doesn't wait to fold his arms around the portly woman, where before, it would've taken him years to muster the courage.

"So, Mito-san, what was it you wanted to tell me?"

"Eh, uh, that can wait for a little bit, Gon. But first," and here is where the woman of iron makes her debut, where the stone reaches into her hands, her voice, her hips where her fists rest. Determination strikes an arrow across her mouth, turns it into a smile. "We're having a meal. I'm going to need help to set the table."

Almost immediately, the house gets to work.

Grandma Abe boils the kettle, and Kurapika produces an abundance of foreign tea leaves from which Grandma Abe wanders over and prods him with questions and queries which the Kurta, time and time again, continues to answer. Leorio and Mito-san set the plates, working in tandem of spooning and placing the noodles into their bowls. Gon and Killua set the table, finding chairs and cutlery and silverware to decorate it, making a game of who can find the most spoons for each person. Somewhere, someone turns on the dusted radio on the edge of the counter, spilling music into the room.

And Kurapika, given a reprieve from the numerous questions of Grandma Abe, who spills the tea leaves into their respective chinaware, observes. He watches how this home brings life to people, how they become instant family as the doors yawn open and welcome them inside, the smell of spices in the air. How music and sound and light fills it, making it feel so close to a small patch of heaven if he ever reached it in his lifetime. It reminds him of his mother, of the _carneberry_ and _gregori_ spices she grew in her small garden, of the western herbs - basil, coriander, oregano found among the list - his father would receive when the elder went out to greet travelers.

He receives his cup from Grandmother Abe, smile plucked from nostalgia's hands, as he watches when Gon hops across Killua's back to steal the final spoon of their game.

The meal is full of laughter, of Leorio and Killua fighting over the last slice of tempura, of Mito-san giggling into her tea when soy sauce splatters across Gon's cheek and she wipes it away with a napkin. And Gon doesn't question the extra plate put into the fridge for later, because he knows Mito-san worries, and she doesn't need her heart hearing alarm bells again.

The day lengthens, until sundown begins to approach on crouched feet and they are spread out in the living room, across the floor. Killua lies against Gon's feet, who in turn is slumped against Mito-san's shoulder tiredly as the meal pushes him towards sleep. Kurapika smiles fondly at the scene, watching how Mito-san curls her arm around his shoulders, almost prepared to lift him up and bring him to bed. But a voice stops her.

"Mito."

She stills in her movements, and her heart remembers of what is approaching, of what is humming soft tunes and climbing trees as they come back, as they come home to find Gon. And, without needing to be looked at, Kurapika and Leorio nod, stand at the ready and begin to depart to where they - and Mito-san _insisted,_ saying she won't let Gon's friends stay with anyone other than family - have placed their bags. Leorio scoops up Killua, sleepy and worn out from the day and it's journey, and Grandma Abe joins them to help fix up their rooms for them.

This leaves Mito with Gon, her cousin's son, the boy she raised, the child she built from scratch. And it scares her how he shall react.

"Gon? Gon, wake up."

"Mmm...M-Mito-san? Isn't it - _yaaaaah_ \- sundown?" a yawn breaks apart his words, splinters them as he stretches and closes his eyes again, knees tucking up further into her side like he won't ever let go, like he didn't before. It makes her heart ache; this innocent boy, always been hers, only hers and Grandmother Abe's for eleven years, two years old when Ging swept back in a storm, like it was the only thing calling him home.

She hums a laugh, presses down the spikes to kiss along his hairline. "Yes, my dear. It's sundown, but...do you remember why I called you out here?"

He blinks tiredly, nodding then shaking his head, sleep clouding his memories in a fog. "I thought you just wanted me home for the week."

"Well, yes, but...I have something important to tell you." And here is where he moves, where her arm falls from his shoulder to place itself in her lap. She places one hand over the other, as if that will stop the shaking.

Gon raises a brow at her, and nods. "Okay, what is it?"

Mito-san sighs. "Gon...Gon, you have a sister."


	3. BUT SUDDENLY,

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a few tidbits got cut out of this chapter, but they'll be put in next so don't worry about it for now ! hopefully, you guys get a bit of a feel for Gon's sister's character; whilst I'm trying to make her similar to Gon, I want her also to posses the maturity and tolerance of an adult who's practiced in catering for a child. if anyone has any constructive criticisms or ideas, please don't hesitate !
> 
> Also, this is being posted from mobile, so please bare with me if it comes out a little screwy.

 

_**chapter three** _   
_but suddenly,_

* * *

 

At first, Gon believes it is the lingering sleep. That it clouds his ears and distorts his aunt's voice and turns it's syllables into something else, something that isn't entirely possible. But even sleep cannot catch the voice and twist it, to send his soft heart into shock, into stutter. And Gon is brought out of it's throat, air-lifted with the realization that his _aunt isn't lying._

It happens slowly. His eyebrows lift towards his brow, his lips part and circle as if to form a scream and his shoulders quake, two mountain ranges on the verge of collision. Mito-san's own concave, awaiting the onslaught for revealing such a thing.

"Re- _eeee_ -ally?"

Mito unbottles herself, unties all the loose edges that came undone with her words, caught off guard by the soft curiosity that bundles in his throat, half pulled apart by a yawn placed precariously between the cliff lips of his words. Mito-san watches, how gently he rubs at his eyes, how his legs swing and the only difference in him is the way he smacks his lips, tries to rid the traces of a nap left between his teeth.

A sigh unravels in her. What had she been scared for all this time? "Yes, Gon, of course. You have a sister. Are you...not _surprised?_ "

"Well, yeah," he says, a nod following the words, dragged on by the remnants of sleep as his eyes droop, "Ging never told me I had a sister, but it's kind of cool; I never had anyone to play with or talk with, and now I do. But, Mito-san...how do _you_ know about her?"

Still caught in the waves of shock at how simplistic he reacts, at how nothing is undisturbed by this revelation, she cannot help but set aside the question he asks for a few moments later, because all that she wants to know is "Gon, why are you not surprised you have a sibling?"

At this, Gon slowly, mechanically, wrenches his hand into his clothes, across the chest of the black tank top worn and pigeon-holed with summers and the wind, a shirt that has last him years from childhood in adolescence. It is as familiar as his own heartbeat, as the walls of his home and it is something that keeps him grounded as he reminds her. "Do you remember the missing pain, Mito-san?"

This is where she understands. Years before, when Ging's leave was fresh and raw, and he could only speak in small, easily forgotten sentences that fit in his mouth only slightly, he'd tell her of the missing pain. The weight that hung, like forgotten laundry, across his heart strings. When nights had been long, he would climb into her bed and press to her side, mumble of the _missinglostwhereisit **missing**_ pain that kept him up, that untangled his little boy body from childhood's innocence.

And he went searching. Tried to find it among the canopies, across the backs of tortoise shells and in the hidden alcoves that littered the docks teeth. He couldn't find what had dug out a hole of his heart, a missing puzzle piece that had never quite been filled, even though Mito-san had told him it must just be the absence of his father taking it's frost-bitten place. Over the years, the cries had diminished until they fell into nonexistence and Mito-san thought them lost to awkward, childhood stories at the dinner table.

Now she knows better than to assume things about the heart. Mito-san nods, carefully, and holds his hand when it uncurls from across his horse-stomped heart. "I remember."

"If I have a sibling, maybe that's the thing I was missing. But Mito-san, you didn't answer my question."

"Oh, yes, well," she places her heart in her own hands, feels the rattle of it as she speaks, "that's because she's here, on the island. She's been looking for you Gon."

" _Wha_ -really?!" This is where he jumps, where all the coiled excitement in him comes loose and his feet connect with the cushions, stain it with muddy boot marks that Mito-san has no inclination to scrub at. Curled fists come loose, become tugs on his own hair. This, he had thought, was something impossible. "W-Where is she? Should I go meet her? What -"

" _Shh_ , Gon, shh," Mito's soft hands, toiled from mindless child rearing, pull him back to earth beside her, and she smooths her hands over the top of his head. She remembers, distantly, that this is what had comforted him when that missing pain bore itself all those years ago. "She's gathering firewood, though she should be back soon. If you want to meet her, you can. But she said she understands if...if you're just not ready and this comes as a surprise to you. Now, I need you to listen to me."

Almost as if a soldier has been bred beneath his skin, Gon straightens when Mito-san's fingers brush his chin, bring him up to gaze into the honeycombs of her eyes. This is where she finds the remnants of his father, mirrored in the scattered freckles, the bronzed skin and the fire that burns, deep inside his soul. His mouth sets a firm line, ready to listen.

Mito nods. "She understands if you don't want to see her, or if you want her to go home immediately. You hold the cards here, my dear. She just wants you to know that she wants to talk to you, and Gon...she can open a lot of doors to your past," she pricks an idea, small, soft - something malleable that will become hard in his skull as the hours wear on, "to Ging."

"To Ging," he repeats, eyes cast towards his knuckles, where they clench into the edges of his shorts. He appears to think, brows pressed downwards until he looks back up to his aunt. "Mito-san, tell me about her."

At this, his aunt smiles, even as her heart breaks. "Her name is Yona."

Mito-san presses into sundown with her words, answering each question as she can, ready and willing to feed the ever-hungry curiosity of her cousin's child. He bounces off her answers, asking more and more, untangling them until a tree of all that she knows places it's roots in his mind, as he creates a mental image of whoever may return home with firewood knocking loosely.

The whale island woman is enthralled with how passionate he is, the same rabid need of knowledge in his stomach as his father. She watches how he pieces together the girl, fits favourite food with favourite colour, colour of her eyes to the bark on the trees. The length of her hair to the rivers that run across the forest floor, tongues in the earth. And when he is satisfied, assured she is real, that she is living - he settles back, feet swinging.

"Gon, do you want to meet her?"

"Well, it'd be pretty mean after making her come all this way from near Jappon, right?"

Mito's mouth lines itself with worry. "That doesn't matter. What matters is how you feel about this, about her."

Gon blinks, bats away the uncertainty and nods, folds his legs into a knot and becomes silent. Mito lets him, doesn't shake away the thoughts in his head until suddenly, the world and it's silence is broken by the door opening.

Gon swallows his heart, his lungs, in one quick motion, back becoming a harp string at the sound. Mito jumps, standing immediately to greet whoever comes tumbling through the door, the clack of wood and the whisper of the wind following their movement. Behind him, Gon listens to the footsteps - the soft pad of them, the way they rattle no floorboards. She is small, too used to being silent to know how to be welcome in another's home.

"Mito-san, I brought the firewood like you asked," the voice tinges on the edges of an accent, her o's rolled with h's to follow, like a continued ball of thread. But there is laughter in her lungs, something that catches sunbeams in glass bottles as she trips slightly, if the sound of rattling firewood is anything to go by. It catches against his heart, the missing pain that has opened it's mouth closing, disappearing, like a threadbare scar among the pumping and flowing, the life beneath his ribs. "Though, I may have lost a few on the way, but this should last you at least a week. I can always get more if-"

"Yona dear, that's more than enough," Mito flaps at the words, mother making an entrance as she pulls the straps from the girl's shoulders, lets it clatter to the ground beside the worn table littered with trinkets - keys, cough sweets, a half-yellowed photograph of Mito and Gon beneath the canopy of trees - before guiding her hand around her shoulders. She turns her head towards the living room, and only then does she feel the cords beneath her hand tighten, the skin turned taut with dotted surprise. "Gon, would you like to meet your sister?"

Unsure footing pads it's way off the couch, boots clambering around the rugs and wood, fast-tracked eyes immediately straying to the girl caught under his aunt's fingers just beside the door. Her fingers slide to her mouth, breath a shaky thing, hiding the crooked teeth beneath bow-string lips. Slowly, something ancient and forgotten reaches out to her in him, finds the edges of his body already leaning towards her.

The girl - _Yona_ , _Yona_ , _Yona_ \- looks to Mito-san for permission, before inching towards Gon, who doesn't move from where he studies her. Her tabard, tied with an obi, stumbles around her legs, short in stature and covered with grey trousers and boots. Her arms however, are bare, and littered with strange markings that catch his attention. They flash with blues and greens, create tear drops that mold into barbed wire along the tops of her arms, arrows that circle her wrists and reach forever up her arms, into the fabric and across her collarbones, ending in a point against each other, like noses brushing.

Yona lowers herself before him, but never where she can touch him. Even as her eyes fill with oceans, she makes no move to quieten them for herself. She knows, it is Gon's decision if they should interact; she isn't the one hurting here. But, she notices his gaze, the wild way his eyes drink in her tribal tattoos, the markings that show she belongs somewhere else. She lifts her arm, heart wrenching at the way he goes to move away, to scatter himself among this room where he should feel at home.

She places her arm in front of her, gestured as if blocking an attack, but shows off the trio of arrows that drive down her arm like a dirt track, offering herself up to him. "Do you like them?" he nods. "Do you want to touch them?" he nods. And he reaches out.

Her skin is warm, but calloused. Scars weave in and out among the ruins of her tattoos, when he goes to follow the design of one and his course is diverted into the ravine of another. She doesn't seem to mind, and only turns her arms when a certain tattoo circles her skin, her coffee skin. As he follows, Gon looks for the similarities, the telltale signs that their blood is the same; as muddied and dirt-smudged as it is. He finds the same skin tone, the moles that form constellations among her skin, the same nose when he presses his fingers over rounded features, blown wide with youth, even if she is not much more than four years older than him.

The process takes time, and soon, Gon is pressing his hands into the sides of her hair, feels the browned waterfall of it, pressing her features wide and smushing them together, trying to see all the different angles and ways her face can change. It makes her laugh, how her mouth is spread like butter one moment and puckered the next. Then, as he stops his exploration, she watches how his own expression softens, almost dreamlike when he only places his hands, brushing but never touching, the sides of her face.

" _Are_ you my sister?"

Yona is so thankful when she places her hand across his, that he doesn't flinch away this time. "Yes, I am."

Suddenly, she is brought down to the floorboards in a tumbling of limbs, his hands caught around her shoulders and Mito-san's laughing and Yona's laughing through her tears and Gon's excited voice chattering, questioning, learning more about the estranged sister he had no idea was alive in the world. And she stays there, on the floor with him, rather than relegating them to the couch for a more comfortable place, because Gon is comfortable here, on his knees in the hallway of his home, beginning for answers. Yona couldn't ask for more, even as tears slip down her cheeks.

Behind them, hands clasped against her skirts, Mito's heart swells. Gon, come alive with the introduction of his sibling and answers to the foggy, mismatched patchwork of his past and Yona, a girl washed up on their doorstep with only a few pictures to prove herself in the monsoon like it was the one thing that drove her here - and Mito cannot stop herself from realizing how alike they are. With all the exuberance Gon speaks his questions, Yona answers and asks her own with a feverity, wanting to know all about the little brother she had lost once all those precious years ago.

Even if it breaks her heart, to somehow lose him after all the years he's had a home in her heart - she is pleased it is, at least, to this girl.

Mito somehow relegates them to the couch, where Gon knots his hands with Yona's and asks the meanings behind her tattoos, what life is like where she came from and finally, after what felt like days, "why did you come looking for me _now_?"

It rushes the air out of Yona, the girl composing the sails of her lungs so she breathes, so she _continues_ to breathe. Somehow, he notices the quake deep in her bones about this particular question.

"I-I've been looking for you for many months now Gon, ever since we saw you on the television, the broken one back at our home. At first, we couldn't believe it, t-that you were _alive_ , that _Ging_ had...well, first there's something I need to tell you," her mouth moves in different directions as she speaks, until she settles onto the root, the soft crux of why this all came to fruition, and curls her hand tighter around his. "Gon, you also have a brother, and his name is Isas. He's your twin."

A beat passes before he yells.

" _WHAAAAT_." His body flings itself back as if fire has been blown into his face, as if the world has concaved just in front of him. Gon's blood pumps with a frightening speed, and Mito-san's own fingers, curled gently around a cup of tea, slip and it shatters amongst the ground. The sound causes all to jump, and Yona chews on her lip, trying to calm the child as his body slumps, turns jelly-like against the couch cushions. Mito-san doesn't even drag her gaze to the ground - it's strictly caught on the edges of Yona.

"I-I know it's a shock, but it's _true_. Here, I've got pictures of him," her fingers dig into the hidden pockets of her tabard, searches through yellowed pages of memories Gon doesn't remember - a tree laden with rope swings, a little girl caught red handed at the edge of a dining table and broken plates, a collection of flowers beneath an open window - until she digs out a soft, thumbed picture. The creases in it are almost cuts, as it flops and bends when she opens it.

She presses it into Gon's hands, observing the way he mirrors her soft movements of opening it like a precious treasure, despite the volcanic flow of his blood in his ears. In the picture, three children stand at the top of a short hill, a man climbing up after them and bending down to scoop up one and immediately, from the thorns of his hair, Gon knows it's Ging. At the top, Yona with the blessed youth of a six year old, stands with her arms high in the air, smile wide on her mouth. A few feet away from her, bending down onto all fours as he trips, is a two-year old reaching for her legs. From the numerous baby pictures in Grandma Abe's scrapbooks, as well as the descriptions from Aunt Mito, Gon knows that's him, fingers grasping towards the knee socks of Yona.

Immediately, his gaze drips down to the third child, the same age as him and is almost shocked when he thinks he's staring at himself again. A small child, arms thrown high towards Ging as he sits on the dirt track path, mouth captured in a permanent, eternal laugh, stares back at him with wide brown eyes. His fingers ghost over the figure, jaw a slackened hinge.

Beside him, Yona smiles, nostalgia a distant song in the rumble of her throat. "There he is; Isas."

"Isas," he repeats, committing the name to memory, a commemorative piece of patchwork on the quilt of his life. Mito-san takes the picture from him, but it is replaced with another. This is an newer picture, one Gon knows he wasn't present for as it's taken when Yona is around thirteen, and Isas nine. She's clutching him to her chest as she trips over a stool backwards, both their faces scrunched into smiles as they wait for the impending doom of the floor. His arms and legs are thrown outward, cast off his feet by the force of his sister's hold.

"Why isn't he here now?"

As the first picture is passed back to her, Yona folds her mouth. Again, Gon realizes he's brushed at a raw nerve. Slowly, she folds the picture in on itself before placing her gaze on him - and at once, he can find a roaring fire in the depths of her. "That's because he's not fit for travel, Gon; and by that, I mean he's sick. _Really_ sick," behind him, he can hear Mito-san's voice catch on the splintered parts of her, and Yona quickly drives to remedy this, "I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to worry, but that's why I'm here. I wanted to bring you back home and meet him. But only if you wanted too."

She places her hand against the curve of his, parallels of two different lives in the same weaving of skin and bone. And Gon continues to bore his eyes into the pictures, notices the subtle differences in Isas to himself - his skin is a lighter shade of bronze than it had been in the older photo, his face hollowed more and how his arms look weaker, almost a collection of bone as he looks again. This, he determines, will be committed to memory as well.

"Is he going to die?"

Yona taps her fingers against his hand, and waits for him to come back to earth. When he does, she smiles, tugging away the sadness from her face to try and brighten his worried heart. "Hey, I'm not letting him leave. He's always wanted to meet you."

"He knew I existed?"

"Heh, yeah, he did. We both did, but we thought you lost to us, which is why we never looked for you and... _god_ , I'm so sorry Gon," something breaks inside her, makes her bones brittle, her breath cut-throat and Gon is caught in shock at how she falls apart; desperately, awkwardly, like a star crumbling. "If we'd known you were alive, we would've...we would've done something, I could've found you quicker and-"

"Hey, it's okay, Yona. You didn't know," and just like that, the tidal waves in her heart quieten, and she is left stargazing when he speaks, holding up the yellowed picture like a well-won prize, "besides, we have all the time in the world to get to know each other, ne?"

"Y-Yeah, that's right," her breath rushes in and out of her, a flower opening and closing in her stomach, before she softens, becomes the big sister instead of the younger. "We found out you were alive when an old rerun of a heaven's arena match came on and Isas - he loves watching those matches and you should have _heard_ him. He was yelling 'he looks like me, he looks like me!' and as soon as I saw you, I knew you. I've known you for a while now."

What sets this in stone, what cements his and Mito-san's resolve and belief in this girl and her story, her wild adventure across oceans and continents to find him, is when she reaches her hand up and curls it across her heart, scratches away the remnants of the missing pain he had swallowed for years.

His smile bleeds stars and he turns back to the picture, shares it with Mito-san as she points out the similarities and the way Yona's hair half covers her face in the fall, laughing through her words. He thumbs around the edges, tries to wonder just what could've happened to split this family so severely across it's middle.

"You want me to come with you, don't you?"

"Mmhm. Only if you want too though; it's your decision Gon."

But he need only look at Mito-san, find the determined and solid set of her mouth to craft an answer, a wide grin that catches Yona around the middle; it makes her remember an island and a little boy waiting for his family to come home.

"Yeah! I wanna meet Isas!"

* * *

 

Yona didn't stay with Mito-san and Grandma Abe in the time Gon was far from home; with the little jenny she'd brought with her, she'd insisted with paying for a hotel room, wanting not to be a bother to the two. It was small, only with a bed and a bathroom and a collection of drawers with a soft chair beside them, she was given the bare edges with all the jenny she could muster. But she was fine; worse living conditions had been home to her before.

This is where Gon drags them, the hoard of friends he has collected like flowers, to the door of her room. The woman at the reception is kind, knows Gon by name and tells him her room when he explains the situation. Killua is half asleep beside Leorio, who stumbles to the back of the lift and props himself against the hand railing, eyes a constant pair of shutters, opening and closing. Beside Gon, arms crossed, Killua nods into sleeps mouth.

The only one half awake, half aware, is Kurapika. He's in a shirt far too large for his frame, borrowed from Leorio and smelling of cheap cologne. He's tying the sleeves to the tops of his arms as he speaks. "Gon, how do you know this woman is your sister?"

"Apparently, when she got here, Mito-san didn't believe her. She asked for proof and she'd brought loads of pictures, even her birth certificate and said that if she really wanted too, Mito-san could put her in for a blood test with me to confirm it," he rocks back on his heels, annoyed by the way the elevator sluggishly scrolled through it's numbers, "plus, she seems really nice! A person like that couldn't lie."

"I dun'know Gon," murmurs Killua, fingers pressed to his lids and pulling them wide, as if to keep them open longer, "some people are able to change their appearances, their voices and even use blood to fake test results. Did you even _check_ that she wasn't a nen user?"

Gon laughs awkwardly, receiving a smack to the back of his head from Killua. Leorio snorts in laughter, hand rubbing against the stubborn stubble across his jaw before settling back into a snore.

"Idiot; _I'll_ check when we see her."

" _Uwah_ , thanks Killua!"

Kurapika smiles fondly at the scene, eyes gazing back up towards the floor numbers as they climb steadily to the seventh floor. But something aches inside him, something that drags chalk across his spine and it clatters, turns every nerve on edge as they approach the floor Gon's apparent sister is on. Instant distrust scratches in his jaw, an itch he can't reach yet.

So he waits, lets Gon run wild with excitement for the possibility of family - and _god_ , if Kurapika doesn't know to not take that away from someone - and gateways to a life he'd thought lost to him, and lets the elevator drag on. But he is determined, with the wind rattling in his mouth, he will tear her down if her assumptions are false.

Suddenly, the elevator pauses it's ascent and the doors creak open. Gon moves to walk out, only to laugh loudly and throw his hand high in a wave. "Yona!"

Down the hall, where the light dwindles and flutters above her head, Yona exits her room in running gear, hands half made into scraping her hair into a ponytail. Immediately, her head snaps up and a grin blossoms across her features, letting the hair fall away through her fingers. "Gon!" She jogs to the elevator, laughing as the child falls into her with a tight hug. "What on earth are you doing here?"

"We came to meet you!" At this, her expression changes, from welcome to hostile then back to welcome, something that Kurapika catches even if it is a flash, a trick of the light beneath the three flickering, dying lights above them. His brow lowers, his mouth sets.

Gon turns, hurricane boy dragging her behind him into the elevator, picking apart his friends to introduce family to family. She'd left before they woke, and Gon had been determined for the group to meet. " _This_ is Killua; he's my best friend! I told you about him right?" Killua flaps his hands at him, tries to close his mouth to the way Gon lights up about him, tries to share stories and adventures before Yona has a moment to speak. It causes the two to tumble into a brawl, good natured and dripping into laughter as the elevator doors close.

It makes her stumble back into Kurapika, who steadies a hand around her elbow. The brunette looks up, slightly startled before nodding at him. "Thank you; I'm Yona, and uh..."

"Kurapika," he offers, filling the air that rushes between them in the lapse of speech. She nods gratefully, but here, where she is shadowed by the essence of Gon or far away in a hallway where he can't see it, he notices the tightening of her shoulders. The lift of her chin. Distrust worms an ugly hand between her ribs, hesitation between her teeth when she smiles.

Kurapika knows the signs of someone with the habit of suspicion, because he's a creature of the same caliber.

"It's nice to meet you, Kurapika."

"Likewise, Yona."

Between the yelling, a loud snore alerts them back to Leorio, who wrenches himself from sleep only to pull the two children apart in their rough and tumble, like a tired father too used to such an act. The movement makes Yona giggle, as when Killua rips himself from his fingers, he scratches a hand over his chin, mumbling "god, you kids, it's early. Let me sleep."

"You're in an _elevator_."

"And you're in my personal space," bites back the older man to Killua, leaning up against the bar only to bend to glare the child in the face, yawn splitting his mouth wide. Killua's teeth grate, but there is nothing that lights a match in the elevator - only the bumbling, awkward smile that splits across both their faces as Leorio straightens again. At this, he notices Yona and his eyebrows raise. "Oh! Uh, _hi_ , I'm Leorio. You're -"

" _Yona_. Yeah, I..." as the two dissolve into conversation, Kurapika peers around Yona's shoulders to where Killua's voice has stumbled into silence. His brows are set, brick work into flesh, as he watches the girl, exchanging answers to questions Leorio proposes. After a moment, Killua's gaze turns up and his head shakes out a 'no' to the blond.

Kurapika's jaw tightens, cord over bone.

"Yona!" Gon's arms thread around her waist, dragging her eyes back towards him from where Leorio questions the numerous blue tattoos that scrape along her skin. Fondly, almost instinctively, her fingers dip through the spikes of black hair. "When are we going to go see Isas?"

"Whenever you want, though we'd have to leave in the week if you wanted to do it quickly,"

"Today! Right now!" Life ricochets through Gon, fingers curling fiercely into her clothes and his back straightening, sliding higher into the air. At this Leorio chuckles, arms crossed as he leans across the bar of the elevator.

However, Yona's brow raises, surprise brushing through her mouth. " _R_ - _Really_? Sure, okay; there's a captain I know that comes through here every other week and hopefully, today's the day they exchange their vegetation produce," as if the tide rises in her, Yona inflates. Her smiles mirrors Gon's and her fingers cup his cheeks, filled them with the youth she hadn't known lived across oceans and continents. The two sound like excited siblings. They _look_ like siblings, skin bronzed and hair dark and smiles rapturous. "We can bring Mito-san and Granny Abe if they want to come too, if you'd like!"

"Can _everyone_ come?"

At this, silence burrows into the walls of the elevator, nestles against the edges of the mirrors that duplicate faces; they show the way Killua's hands unclench from his sides, how Kurapika's head snaps towards the child, eyes round and head tilted upwards, like the sun has split apart the roof and he bathes in it. For a moment, Yona's hands still around his face.

Until, "I though they already were coming. But sure, if that'd make you more comfortable."

" _Sugoi_! Killua, did you hear that?"

"Y-Yeah, I did..." as Gon splinters away from Yona to knot himself around Killua's shoulders, his gaze can't seem to pull away from the smiling girl, how the doors split open and bathe her in three ribbons of sunlight. He maps her, finds the gentle movement of her limbs, the soft pad of her feet out the doorway and he realizes - she's used to giving whatever her heart can provide.

But it makes him suspicious, the overflow of kindness for her allegedly younger brother and how quickly it has filled. As if she'd known him for years. But he says nothing, because Gon is hanging off his shoulders and he can't stop the way his blood flows backwards, how words lodge in his throat at the grin that decorates the bronzed boys features. He can't bear to loosen it from the hinges of his own piece of sunshine.

But Kurapika see's; Kurapika looks to Killua and nods for an entirely different reason.


	4. THE WORLD SPLINTERS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: there are so many boat references in this chapter, it's freaking insane. but god, am i happy i finally got to write this chapter, i've been waiting for this moment for ages and writer's block just would not let me do it, so i'm sorry if it's a little bad but i tried to write through it all. anyways, i hope you enjoy and please leave some criticisms or response; i thrive off them.

**_chapter four_ **  
_the world splinters,_

* * *

Mito-san and Granny Abe couldn't leave the cottage; their roots were in Whale Island, in the earth and sea that surrounded them. They toiled into it to breed a living, dirt under nails, and couldn't afford to let the house linger in silence for the week they would be gone. So, Mito-san had grasped Yona by her shoulders, and stared her straight in the eyes. "You promise me, when that beautiful boy is well, you bring him _home,_ " she said, "you _promise_ me."

Yona had hesitated, found static in her fingers before a grin pulled her cheeks wide, pocketed sunlight in the corners as she lifts her hand, little finger jutted out in an offering. The sight tugs at Mito-san's heartstrings, makes Granny Abe laugh like her knees didn't shake from the jolt of it as she presses their thumbs together. "I promise, Mito-san."

Now, the group stand among the docks, Gon peering over the edge to catch the slim shake of fishes, the crabs that cluster around the wooden stakes that hold them up above the ocean's gullet. From here, he can name them - _gargantuan pescals, luminous trouts, sword-backed crabs_ \- and he passes this knowledge to Killua, whose eager to take whatever Gon gives him. Both boys hang from the hips towards the sea, the ends of Gon's hair becoming damp as they wait.

Beside them, the others hover - though they know they'll be fine, even if they fall. But Kurapika hovers for a different reason - and he watches Yona in this moment, tries to find any twitch or flinch or jolt that will ignite the fountains in him, will spurt to life any reason on why she may be lying. But as she bounces on her toes, waits patiently as sea-breeze twines itself between the browned strands of her hair, among her clothes, there is little to suggest a lie lives in her. Her fingers play with the fringe of her shoulder bag, filled with clothes and memories.

"Yona," he says, jerking her gaze towards him. "How is it you know a captain that sails here?"

He doesn't need to look to Leorio, whose features turn sour, to convey the message; _isn't that convenient._ "Oh, well, that's because Cap' lives on the island with Isas and I; they've been there since I was a little girl. They were friends with my mom too, _adored_ her, so they always think they owe me a favor, like a debt to her memory. They're also a produce merchant and Whale Island's almost a capital for fresh and quality produce to sell. They've been here a few times before, though I'm surprised they never came across Gon or Mito-san."

" _They?_ "

"Cap' doesn't like labels; thinks they're to constricting," Yona shrugs lightly, undisturbed by the idea, and hooks her legs over the jaw of the docks, smiles widely at Gon's reflection as he searches for a fish he'd let slip between his kind fingers. "So what have you guys found?"

"Not much," whines Killua, propping himself back up onto his elbows, basking in the butter of the sun that hangs above him. His head tips back, three water droplets staining his chest. "Thought we could see if there were any fish to sell down there; I'm _dying_ for some chocorobo's."

Kurapika tuts good-naturedly at Killua, exasperated shake of his head as Leorio scratches along his jaw, an itch he can't find through the newly-trimmed stubble. Yona laughs, smiling wide when Gon jerks back upwards, every movement a flurry of excitement and exuberance, looking towards her as he leans on his forearms. From where Leorio stands, something stirs in his chest - they look comfortable. They look content, awash with the sound of the tide. They look like family sharing secrets over a dinner table, and the thought makes him smile.

"I told you he was a chocoholic, right?"

"Hey! Don't just go _sharing_ that, idiot -"

"Yona!" the voice creaks the words into silence, breaks apart the seams and calls the girl's gaze to attention like a vine pulled from the earth, dirt and decay a forgotten thing. Then, suddenly, her mouth breaks into laughter and her feet sweep the ground, drag up the dust between wooden teeth in this spark of energy. She disappears over the wooden boards, to careen into a person's chest who bundles her close, like a daughter come home.

"Is that the captain?" queries Kurapika thoughtfully, assessing the attire of the other - hair dipped in starlight in a long braid over their shoulder, a high-neck blue dress and boots for clothing. Along their belt, a bag of jenny hangs loosely, as well as a small bundle of items. His head tilts, watching the two converse. " _Surely_ not; that's hardly the attire for sea-journeying."

However, his suspicions are dashed as the other pulls themselves from Yona's hands, who picks at a loose thread from their shoulder and wave over the cluster of boys. They obey, standing before the other and here, Kurapika gets a longer look at their features. Sharp, angled, burrowed with wisdom and the sea's kiss in their hair. Wrinkles mar their features, but the hooded eyes seek him out all the same, leaving him feeling hollow.

"This is Captain Farley; they're taking us to the island."

"I couldn't let you go with some stranger, Yona, and - _Isas?_ Boy, I thought you were sick again; I didn't see you on the ship last week," the elder, voice rolled with the same 'oh's as Yona's tongue, bends at the waist to peer at Gon, hands pressed to crumbling knees. Their brow crumples in thought, mapping his features as Gon blinks away the confusion. Behind him, Kurapika tightens his jaw; _at what lengths had Yona gone to craft this possible lie?_

"I-I'm not Isas, Captain."

"W-What? No you're," tremors sit in the Captain's jaw, brittle bone quaking at the words. Their gaze turns from Gon, to catch Yona's, whose mouth slides into a billowing of ricocheted supernovas, an explosion of jagged happiness that can't seem to find a place to sit whenever this subject comes to speech. Slowly, mechanically, the Captain turns to press their gaze into Gon's, voice a rumble of earthquake. "Y-You're...oh my god, you're _Gon._ "

" _Hai!_ It's nice to meet you, Cap' - _woah!_ "

With the energy old age should have stolen, the Captain sweeps the boy into their arms, laughing gleefully. Yona crumples at the waist, giggling with pure joy at the sight as the elder peppers their exclamations between their affectionate nuzzles. Beside them, Kurapika's brows raise as Captain Farley hoists the boy under their arms, dots stars into their own gaze when he laughs with them.

Their mouth presses dotted kisses to his forehead, sending him into embarrassed giggling. "Oh my _stars_ \- I'm so sorry, but this is just so exciting! You don't know how long they've waited to meet you," they explain, placing the boy back onto his own stable feet. Though he rocks on his feet, he doesn't stumble, even when Killua places a hand on his back. The Captain's own smile doesn't diminish, a sigh pulled backwards through their teeth. " _Oh,_ you look so much like him. I-I'm so sorry, I got a bit carried away."

Gon beams, without hesitation to a single nerve, just like Yona knew he would. "It's fine; I don't mind."

And somehow, with a few moth-chewed words, with a tongue covered in honeycomb happiness, the atmosphere lifts with warmth and faint nostalgia in their lungs and the Captain straightens, places their curled hands on their hips and nods firmly. They turn to the group, a crooked smile inked over their mouth and Kurapika almost laughs, when he see's the knocking of beads along the bandanna tied around their wrist, the sign of someone at home in sea foam.

"Right then, kids. Despite all this excitement, this trip isn't for free," something in Leorio sags, that has Captain Farley's mouth turning wolfish, turning animal in teeth, "I'm going to need your cooperation, day and night, whenever I call. The crew will help with any questions you've got, okay?"

"Jeez, it's like the trip to the hunter exam," mutters Leorio, shuddering vividly at the number of examinees that had emptied their stomachs into the sea. Kurapika nods beside him, though makes no sign of discomfort to the idea of labor.

"Well, then it'll be a piece of cake, ne?" Gon's hand lifts as if in a high-five and Leorio cannot stop the movement of his muscles, to high five him back and to drag his fingers through the patch of black thorns, causing laughter to billow out of the boys chest.

The Captain nods, slapping their hands together. Between them, a puff of chalk hits the air in a dust cloud. "Alright then kids; let's set sail for home!"

* * *

The first night is a giant's stomach filled with waves. Water spills haphazardly across the deck, fills the edges where light can't find and sends them spilling to both sides. But they grab ropes and work the ground tackle and fiddle with the sails until the sea smooths itself out, a clear blue blanket that sweeps them closer and closer towards home.

At the bow, the boat angles itself into a point, the wood cut and splintered into a mockery of a ball of ribbon. The pieces fold and bend and weave over each other, an endless game of chase caught within the wood. From the bottom, three long pieces of darkened ribbon branch out, curled and spiraled around each other until they curve into a point a few feet below the top deck. Here, Killua hangs soaked clothes, dripping with sea-salt, across the arched edges of the wooden ribbons, legs crossed upon the bulb of ribbon connected to them. He sits back, drinks in the buttery warmth of the sun when it peeks over the water, as he peers at his phone, lets it coaxes the hollows of him out to play.

"I don't think they'll dry there, you know."

Killua doesn't look up, only taps out a symphony against the finger-printed screen of his phone. "We're heading East; in the early morning, they'll be directly hit by the sun and by the time everyone wakes up, they'll be dry."

"Ah," comments Yona, placing herself across the elevated board that crosses the bow at the point and drawing her legs up to her. Between her fingers, a square of thick paper, spiral bound and smudged with inks and colors sits and in the blue gulp of silence, Yona sketches out a design, something of circles and scratches and weaving.

Killua doesn't ask for a while. His mind is elsewhere, eyes caught on the jaw of the mountains that swallow a port a few miles to the south-east of them, billowing with life and smoke and festivities. And he thinks of Gon. Of how this perfect stranger swept up in the tide to whisk him to somewhere that promised answers, that promised family. To somewhere he could've called home once, that he may have been born in, that _once_ he may have recognized the way the trees murmured his name when he passed through. Killua knows this is important to him, to find something his chest had called heart-sore for so long. It's a scratch Gon has been aching to itch for far too long.

But Killua knows little of family, and when he thinks of it, he thinks of Gon. Of a child in a basement with bands in their hair, of another with eyes that swallow the darkness of him whole. He thinks of them and wonders; _has life scratched at you too hard whilst I've been gone?_

Beside him, Yona continues. Draws long lines that could encompass cities, cross-hatches along them and smudges until they resemble something physical, something the clouds can bend around to form a whole. She tricks the light between her fingers, bottles it into something that takes shape like clay under her hands. It looks buttery and warm, a light turned on in the dark of the page. It reminds him of home, of the way Gon's laugh shakes earthquakes out of him.

Killua knows little of family, of house turned home under his careless hands so he leans back, lets the sunlight drag it's fingers across the swallow of his throat, and because he wants to know what Gon is searching for, why it's so important for him to follow the tide home, he asks "what are you drawing?"

She pulls drunken sunlight out and bends it over a curl of hair on the page and turns it to face him. "You."

* * *

It's halfway between sundown and evening, a place where time stands still, when the sails tuck in for the night. She's somewhere among the rafters of them, blowing dust from the hard-to-reach corners, rope tied into her trouser loops to keep her from falling when the wood creaks, the crow's nest full. When the air becomes new and taunt over her shoulders.

"Ah, I apologize," he says, with all the grace of a soldier as he nods at her, "I thought I was closing the mainsail tonight."

"Don't worry about it, Kurapika," she comments, patting down at a billowing of sheet, the tack following the wind as it curls around her fingers. Her mouth breaks apart at the seams, splits into a polite smile to dispel the energy that inks it's way out of the shadows the sea spills into the deck below. She angles her head towards him, a lock of hair caught in hanging. "Cap' didn't know where you were, so I offered. There's the jib to do too, but if you want to untuck and furl the sailsback, be my guest."

Kurapika smiles, though it's a trick of the light. A mockery of honesty, just a row of teeth on display. Even as he drags his hand out towards her, lets her grasp onto it as she walks the dangerous tightrope of wood back to the solidity of the crow's next, there is no fondness in him. None of the light that Gon spills in her presence, or the vague interest Killua has in the stories she weaves, legends wrought from an island a few hundred miles from this place.

He drops her hand.

"Ah, thanks," she sighs, hands uncurling the tight knot around her waist. She does it quickly, deftly, like a life lived at sea and in the land has taught her. She holds the end of the rope towards him, lets him pick it from her hands. "Well, I'll see you in the morning, hm?"

"Right," he says, already looping the thread through the holes of his trousers, clothes gifted by the crew in exchange for their land ones. But he fiddles at the tying, the tight knot that should form above his navel. It slips and falls through his fingers, a startling contrast to the usually collected blonde. Across from him, Yona smiles softly, bending her head towards him.

"You...need some help?"

"No, I'm - _yes,_ okay," he concedes, offering the scrambled threads into her hands, causing her to laugh. His cheeks blossom pink in his embarrassment, gaze turned away as her own hands pull the knot tightly, pull at his waist to get a proper look at the mess he'd made. It's seconds long, her bowed head focused on the weaving, before giving a few jerks to it to tighten it.

She looks up, smile a darting thing in the lowering sun. "There you go - if it feels loose, give it another jerk."

"Thank you," Kurapika exchanges the westernized pleasantries with her, a social construct he'd had to learn to fit into when he was a boy outside of a forest. But here, he is among the sea, the sand dunes which house crabs and shells and sea water. Here, there is no social convention to dictate too, and as she passes, he breaks it by snatching at her wrist. He wonders why she flinches. "Yona."

He tries not to pay attention to the way she deflates, the way her head turns down once again, hair hiding away the honeycombs of her eyes. He only see's the girl that could possibly bite a hole into his friend's playful heart. "It goes without saying, that if you hurt Gon, I won't be a pleasant memory."

"Well, then I'm glad."

"Hm?" confusion settles a spasm into his heart, gaze snapping to the corner of his eye to see her mouth dip back into a smile - something soft and malleable; heart-wrenching, he can catch Gon's crooked teeth when she speaks.

"I'm glad he has friends to fall back on, if I'm a mistake for him. Everyone in our family's a bit ditzy, me too sometimes, so it's nice for him to be protected from that being a possible flaw and...to have people willing to threaten if someone so much as hurts him," and here is where her head lifts up, captures his own copper gaze with the fire in her eyes. Determination sits among the ruins of her skeleton and he knows that one day, she could be a powerful opponent if he ever decided to engage her. The idea spurs at him, makes him wonder if she'll stay that long. "What sister _wouldn't_ be glad?"

He lets go of her hand. "Goodnight, Yona."

* * *

Daylight and dawn go hand-in-hand, the sunlight cutting a rectangle across his face when he wakes. A weight hangs over his chest, fluff tickling against his nose as he curls around closer to whatever has occupied the loop in his arms. He blinks around the sleep in his eyes, opening the curtains to morning.

His mouth frames a laugh, his fingers tickling along the cup holders of the hip bones of the boy when he's aware. "Killua, what are you doing in my bed?"

Killua slaps tiredly at his hands, face pressing further into the pillow even though daylight grounds them into waking, into sleep stolen hours to follow. When he mumbles into it, Gon shuffles closer, strains to hear the sleep-gulped words in his best friend's throat. From the close proximity, Killua's presses his hand to Gon's face, forcing him back. "Captain Farley said they wanted you at the helm. _Now._ "

With that, Gon leaves Killua to the bed sheets, to the wrath of Kurapika when he unlatches the boom and comes to ask for assistance at fishing. But Gon is already away with the wind, hurricanes in his heels, arriving above deck in a flurry. Some of the crew immediately greet him with 'good-morning's', others he offers to carry the fresh load of wriggling fish to the makeshift kitchen within the holders below. But he's sent on his way often, though gratitude follows every step.

Stairs circle into the helm, placed atop like a balcony above the boat and the crew's quarters. There's no captain's quarters, as it would take up to much space on a cargo ship, causing them all to sleep in the same quarters. So he's not surprised when Captain Farley ascends the stairs at the same time as him, dressed in trousers today with thick army boots, moving to take over the helm from a young crew member and their sloe eyes catch him across the polished wood.

Immediately, their mouth widens into a grin, waving him over and letting the crew member continue the steady sail of cutting through the water. The Captain joins Gon at the edge of the helm, where a long wooden railing separates them from the drop to the deck. Their hands press through his hair, equal parts fond and exasperated at the knots and dry leaves caught there. "You ready for another day of hard labor, Gon?"

"Mm!"

"There you are," they praise, before hooking him under the arms and placing his boots onto the railing. Above, a long beam connects the ropes leading to the crow's nest and boom to the flurry of movement equipment at the stern. Their head nods upwards, gesturing to a loose one. "Can you tighten that up for me, love? Seems the wind's bit into it this week."

Gon nods, leaning back into the Captain's steady hands to get a better look. The rope had been frayed and cut by the razor tongue of the wind last night, making it dangerous to keep it hanging until the next port they come across. He uncurls the threads from each other, feeling the strain of the wind in the sails, in his arms, as he tries to control it. It takes him a while to pull the ropes back into one knot, but he does it anyway.

The Captain nods in praise, letting him settle onto the curved railing. They keep one arm behind him, in case he falls back, but the other rests lazily, half bent, over the railing beside him. They pepper a few kisses into his hair, the boy feeling a swell of pride in his chest at the ministrations. "Well done; couldn't have knotted it better myself."

But at the swell of pride, a strange dip of guilt settles into the pitfalls of his stomach because...this feels a lot like motherly love. A love he'd experienced but hadn't; Mito-san inks her way into his mind, Granny Abe following behind in creaked footsteps and a number of kind women on Whale Island with gentle hands, ready to mother him until the sun settled behind the hills. He knows this love but doesn't, and he's unsure of why he feels he's betrayed Mito-san in accepting the praise of Captain Farley.

"Hey, Gon," the Captain taps his shoulder, and taps him out of his reverie, to cast their gaze towards the bow's nose of the ship, across the water and to something that pokes it's head in the distance. "We'll be there by late morning, I reckon."

His gaze narrows, tries to connect the dots, the blanks in his mind at the Captain's words, before he catches Leorio's waving hand as he scales the netting, the ratlines that fold into the crow's nest, rope straddled across his back. " _'EY,_ GON! GUESS WHERE WE ARE?"

A few feet away, Yona turns her head from where she hauls a sack of apples into her arms, grinning. "IT'S YUUBANA ISLAND!"

Softly, as sleep works it's way out of his system, his brows lift, capturing the impeding sight of the place where he was born. "Yuubana...Island."

* * *

The port fills itself to the brim with life, smoke darting between the roofs like playful children, the air sweet with food and perfume as men and women of all ages flocked to the sights of the Island. Although Yuubana was a port and shipping Island, legends and stories weaved themselves into the culture, making it a small tourist destination as well. Tribes had been formed here, the locals still part of the long-held heritage they'd passed down, which prompts tourists to interact with them as well as visit some of the forgotten sights of where they'd once been. Briefly, Gon heard a legend of the mountains that arched into the distance, jagged like broken teeth. They said a witch lived among the ruins, something children awed at until their gaze was stolen by cards fluttering through the air into a magician's hands.

As the crew disembarks, Captain Farley follows after them, patting fondly at Leorio's chest when he admits he enjoyed the week of labor, flexing a muscle to show the effects it had on his physique. They fold Gon against their stomach, pausing to pat at the hairs and push them back, looking into his eyes, dress billowing around their legs. "Yep," they said, nodding firmly, "he's gonna be so excited to meet you."

"Heh, I hope so! Bye Captain; it was nice meeting you!"

The group move off into the town, though Yona is quickly tasked with a small mission to deliver the small bundle in the knapsack that had stayed on Captain Farley's waist to someone. When asked who, as she loops the sack along the strap of her shoulder bag, she says, "Cap's wife, Cranberry-san. She always gets the first pick of produce on the island, so that's probably what this is. She's also been taking care of Isas whilst I've been away for the last few weeks."

Their tour through town stirs up memories, like a stone thrown into water. It reminds them of Pangaea, the hustle and movement that drags them each way, towards stalls and makeshift circles of entertainment where life breeds laughter. In order to stop Gon's curious mind, Killua has to weave their hands together, dragging him almost backwards through the crowd.

As they journey, people approach Yona in greeting; women commenting on the way the sun has bronzed her further than before, men asking of how the journey had treated her. One boy, a few years older than her, manages to catch Gon's gaze and gasps in shock when he realizes the long-lost twin has returned home. He high-fives him, grinning as he offers a free dinner any time he feels hungry.

When he leaves, Yona grimaces, dragging her words through her teeth. " _Shiro;_ we uh, might wanna hurry. He's known for being a gossip and sooner or later, you're gonna get a flurry of people around you, Gon."

The boys follow behind Yona, the only local they know that folds the island into a walk, taking back alleys and dirt trails towards the residential areas; she knows it as well as she knows the way her teeth turn crooked in her mouth. The dirt kicked into soil and dust turns to pavement, which bends into driveways and homes filled with families, with modern houses and dogs that run rampant through the streets. When one comes to greet the new arrivals, Kurapika lowers to pet at it behind the ear.

Between them, a two-story house juts out in contrast to the metallic grays and brick work. It's just on the corner, the bend into another row of homes and up a slight incline layered with grass, causing it to face squarely down the street, thatched roof overhanging bay windows. They stare out across the street paved in chalk drawings and muddied shoes left by the edge of the road. Yona speeds up, mouth painting wider into a crooked grin with every step that pushes her forwards.

Behind her though, Gon slows, unhooking his thumbs from his bag straps. Slowly, the exuberance in his heart fades, turns the prospect of meeting his brother, his twin-turned-found again, into a daunting task, something he thinks his legs can't hold for very long. He chews into his bottom lip, stopping to stare at the green edges of his shoes, already splattered in mud.

A hand lands on his head, ruffles it until he is a mess of frizzy hair. Looking up, he finds the soft eyes of Leorio as he lowers into a crouch. "Gon," he murmurs, peering behind him to make sure Kurapika and Killua are following Yona in her excitement up the incline, to the weaving path and garden of the cottage. He turns back, mouth plucked upwards in encouragement, "he's going to love you."

It takes him a moment, before he runs his arm across his nose, sniffling, and takes Leorio's hand, climbing the hill together. At the top, Yona drops her shoulder bag and stands, almost firm, as she shouts.

" _Dummy!_ Shouldn't you be in bed right now?"

Static fills the air around them, until a small shape comes running towards the as Leorio and Gon come over the top of the incline together. It darts between the trees that line the edge of the property, uncurling from where they idly swung from one of the bow-stringed tree swings. Their feet pepper the ground, becoming louder and louder until suddenly, they leap into the air, barreling into the girl who catches them with a grin, sending them both tumbling in a mess of limbs and leaves.

" _Yona!_ I missed you so much!"

"Isas!"

Immediately, Gon becomes statue, becomes immobile to the way the trees whisper his name, how the wind calls him to a cottage somewhere among the forest behind the home. He watches as the two fall together, laughing away the pain that blossoms beneath their skin from the fall, foreheads brushing in painful endearment. The boy - and _god,_ does he look so much like him - hangs over her, sitting back to let his sister up from the ground. He wears a short-sleeved, high-waisted black jacket over a white t-shirt, tucked into ripped black jeans, splattered with mud and paint. From where he stands, Gon can see a reiteration of the lightning blue tribal tattoos of Yona's, but they flake and peel over his wrists - painted on.

The boy talks animatedly, fast and too quick to swallow the air around him as she leans back on her haunches, crouched down to pick out leaves and grass from his hair, to wipe away the mud that cakes his jeans. She licks at her thumb, smudging it across his cheek at a particular stubborn piece of dirt. He hiccups slightly in his excitement.

"-you have fun? What was it like? What were other cities like, 'cause Shiro said - _oh!_ did you meet _him?_ "

"Isas."

"Where was he? Did you find him? What was he like? Did he see a picture of me? Can I see a picture of him? You took a picture, _right?_ What's his-"

" _Isas._ "

"-favourite color? I hope it's green; did he have anything of Ging's? How'd he get _that_ strong? I wonder-"

"Isas." the word crawls through her teeth, fond exasperation a tough edge to drive away the boy's curious mind. She pats down his jacket, looking for any signs of injury or ripped fabric. When she doesn't, she smiles, brushing her hands down his arms. "If you want to know, then ask Gon yourself."

It takes the boy a moment, gaze peering around before he finally turns and here, his voice stills in his throat. Gon's breath catches. Isas's heart spasms. Their eyes catch across the small patch of grass between them; oceans have folded into small patches of greenery here, something doable, something that either can cross if they so wish.

The silence doesn't last long.

"Gon!"

"Isas!"

The two boys fall into each other, eleven years crashing to the sound of loose limbs knocking together in a hug, of voices overlapping in excited questions. In Yona's joyful sobbing into her hand, Killua's pat across her back. A decade of forgotten, of heart-sore missing pain falling into each other as the two immediately compare the similarities - _eyes, favorite colors, the way their hair reflects the color green, the abundance of freckles_ \- and the differences - _the scars, the spikes in Gon's hair and the curl in Isas', the way their hands shake or don't_ \- and Yona almost collapses.

 _Finally,_ she breathes into her hands, _finally._


	5. AND LIVES COME HOME

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: i'm not too happy with this chapter, being another filler and all; i had massive writer's block with this and it doesn't read as seamlessly as i'd like. it also got a little away from me at some points, but i hope i revealed more about the freecs family, as well as the attitudes some may hold for other characters. enjoy !
> 
> WARNING: this chapter talks very heavily about death and the after effects of it, as well as of abandonment from a parental figure.

**_chapter five_ **  
_and lives come home_

* * *

Cranberry-san unfolds herself from the doorway at the sound of commotion, unstringing her curiosity into her hands. Her laugh turns awe-struck at the sight of the twins' arms folded endlessly around each other and Gon is already showing off Killua to his curious brother. Thick hands delve into the pockets of her apron, lovingly marked with stains from feeding her ever-growing family of stowaways.

"Well look at this," the dark-skinned woman teeters towards them, mouth a split of stars in her wide face, blown thickly with motherly love as she pats Yona on the shoulder. She tuts fondly at the sight of her waterfall tears and simultaneously, presses a tissue into her hands. The aura that surrounds the woman has Gon blinking, stuttering in place, that familiar ache in his chest as her fingers fold through his hair. "If I didn't know better, I'd have said my little Isas had gone and gotten himself a clone."

"Cranberry-san!" Isas falls into the woman's rounded belly, mouth bleeding laughter and fingers twisting into the coil of dreadlocks that rush down her back, half-filled with leaves and grass from the forest that swallows the rest of the island behind her home. Cranberry-san scrunches her hands into his own hair, endless love billowing from her at the bottled sunlight that decorates the boy's face. "It's _Gon;_ you remember Gon!"

This has Killua peering from beside Yona. "Remember?"

Cranberry-san chuckles lowly, nodding towards Gon. "Of course I do, my love. I delivered both of you, didn't I?" Her knees clatter with age as she lowers, filling Gon's vision with a face he doesn't remember but aches for all the same. He hardly feels it when his own hands creep into her clothing, lose themselves in the tangle of dreadlocks the Caribbean woman posses. "You won't know me too well, Gon, dear. You were hardly a few seconds old when I held you for the first time, hardly nine pounds, and only a few years old when I saw you last. But you've grown so _big,_ I'm... _oh,_ welcome home, dear."

Behind him, Killua folds his arms, his jaw hung loosely on awkward hinges at the pure emotion that floods this woman's tongue - a decade later and she remembers how much he _weighed at birth_ \- as she pulls him close, lets the boy tangle himself into her heart strings. It has him struggling to breath, wondering how it feels to come home to someone who already knows you, whose had your life in their hands all these years later. How it feels to have love instead of bargaining, instead of stained hands.

Cranberry-san sniffles, tears dotting along her gaze when she pulls up and drags a loving hand over the curve of Gon's cheek, laughing through the thickness of her throat. She coughs around her thrumming heart, patting his features and bending to look to Yona. "Do you kids want to come inside? I was just making dinner and there's enough to feed the island in that dish."

Thickly, Yona deposits her laughter. "I'll bet. But...we need to head home first; I've got some things I want to show you, Gon."

At this, Gon nods firmly, hooking his arms happily around Cranberry-san's shoulders, head pressing deeply into the valley of her neck, hiding away the indulgent grin in the collar of her shirt. "It was nice meeting you again, Cranberry-san! Hopefully, we'll see you soon."

"You better, my dear," she presses her words into his hair, dotting her kisses around his face like her wife and Killua shuffles, gaze dropped downwards towards his feet, scuffed with mud and sea-salt; something beats a wild current across his heart, pulling it in and out at the affectionate sight. But his gaze is pulled upwards by a hand on his hair, small and gentle with it's ministrations, filled with too much awkwardness to be Kurapika or Leorio.

His eyes find the honeycombs, the thick amber watching him with friendly gaze and for a moment, he thinks Gon has stepped away from the tight hug to stumble into Killua's own knocking limbs. But it's not; Isas grins at him, idiotically and full of blinding heat that Killua blushes, eyes blinking rapturously, seeing the mirror of Gon in him. It is for this, and this alone, that he doesn't smack the hand away and bends a smile of his own towards him, a rare echo of moonlight.

Isas' smile widens, fills his entire face with joy, until he is snatched from the ground in a bundle of constrained laughter. Yona clutches him around the middle, hefting him onto her back, setting him there like he'd never left before, his arms already fitting comfortable over her shoulders. As she does so, she tosses the bundle of items towards Cranberry-san, who catches them skillfully with worked fingers.

"We'll see you later, _Oba_. Enjoy the apples!"

"Stay safe in the mountains, kids!"

Wordlessly, the group stumbles after Yona, her hand disappearing to tuck itself under the bend of Isas' knee. The trail leads itself through the trees that cluster together behind Cranberry-san's home, knocking leafy limbs and wooden torsos in the dive of the wind. The forest swallows them; the tongue darting blindly over their shoes.

Kurapika watches Yona, watches Isas - the child looks exactly like Gon, apart from the corkscrew curls and sunken sails of his cheeks, the shallowness of his muscles beneath the thick coat that devours his small body. All the while, even as the green silence follows them through the trek, he and Gon and Killua exchange eager tales, stories of three different lives. It's only interrupted by the occasional jostling for purchase by his older sister.

Kurapika looks to her, the way she laughs at the shortened stories and how she makes sure to miss the parts that go further uphill than necessary; the little bumps and detours that collect on the forest floor. The blond's brow lowers. "Yona, may I ask you a question?"

Her head snaps up, a tale of canyons and bandits slipping from her tongue for Isas to scoop up. "Hm? Yeah, sure."

"Why are you carrying your little brother up the mountain?"

"Oh, he's not strong enough to make the trek himself," she jostles him again, he coughs around a swallowed lump of air, "his legs are weakened from the sickness, so he can't make long or uphill journeys. He can run and jump and all that, though sparingly. It's always like this."

Above her, Leorio leans into the conversation, lip pursed in vague thought. "What sickness does the kid have? I've seen certain cases like it, but usually, not a life long one."

The words cause her to bristle slightly, pinpricks blossoming between copper skin and Kurapika narrows his gaze, grasping for the dusted corners of himself to understand what puts her on a knife's edge. Though there is another answer that makes a home between the bustling ideas, he is more inclined to believe one that smells of treachery.

"It's...an island sickness, it's only attacked the locals as far as I know, so you guys are in the clear," she flashes a tilted smile, a half-painted stumbling of teeth, "but, he's had it since he was young. Mom had it too; we call it Haki, it attacks the muscles, causing insane vomiting and restricts air flow like an asthma attack when it comes around. It's..."

She lists the symptoms quickly, a rush of replayed information from a soured tongue as it delves into a cavern of silence. Yona's brows crumple, showing the vague wrinkles around her eyes and mouth that make them realize - youth had been stolen, a mother in a sibling's hands. Beside her, Leorio nods, straightens and drifts his gaze to another part of his being, somewhere Yona's face doesn't stab a thorn of guilt through his side. He doesn't dare press more.

Kurapika, however, is not as kind.

"Why is it that you call your mother by her title as a child, yet you continue to call Ging just...Ging?"

All traces of bitterness lift from her features, youth replenished in innocent gaze. "Does Gon not do it?"

"No, he does, but...that's because he wasn't with Ging as long as you were. I would've thought, having at least six years with him around, you'd see him as a father figure," and despite how desperately his eyes search for a crux of bristle, something that will shake his trust in her further, she merely shrugs. Gently, she kicks out at Killua's feet when he sprints past, tripping him slightly so Gon can tackle him to the forest floor in a shriek of giggling. The sight makes her mouth split wide, hearing the crows of victory over her shoulder.

"That's because I don't see him as a father figure; he wasn't much of one even when he tried."

Though more questions fill the hollows of him, the hard-to-reach places where the synapses expire between his bones, he holds his tongue because something erupts in her. He can feel it through the heat of her aura - when had he been standing so close - and the determined shift of her shoulders. Isas cocks his head curiously at the action, but he is tugged away by curious hands about the littering of puncture scars across his exposed hip bone.

He dusts the conversation to the sides, and leaves her to her reverie. Soon, as the trail winds higher to a point, a house comes into view and Leorio sighs gratefully, accompanied by the excited murmuring of Gon and Killua at the sight.

The house sits on wooden limbs, overlooking the valley like a curious child at the cliff's lip. A wooden veranda lines half the exterior, a small set of stairs directly to the front door and across the other side. Above, a thick wooden square bleeds smoke - a hearth between wooden walls. As they approach, Yona lets Isas drift down towards the ground, finally able to catch his hands around Gon's and drag him towards the door, where beside it, flower pots lay, an array of colours - blue, blossoming tulips, pinked roses and whitened peonies that hang.

Yona removes a flowerpot, jostling a watering can, producing a key from beneath and presses open the door and immediately - the smell of spices, of herbs and heat fill the senses, a wine-cellar of memories welling up in their chests at the familiarity. The space is wide, encompassing both a living room and kitchen in one, a _kotatsu_ table folded neatly against the glass doorway vertical to the front that opens to the veranda. Behind it, the three children race past, laughter in their breastbones. Distantly, they remember the feel of Mito-san's home, how these homews were just two distant cousins lost across the ocean but, altogether, held the same warmth.

"There's a closet next to your shoulder," comments Yona off-handedly, already shrugging off her jacket and laying it across the sandy brown couch that watches the fireplace, disturbing the cushions from their silent perches, "and underneath, there's a shoe rack if you wanna take off your shoes. Do you guys want a drink?"

" _God,_ yeah," breathes Leorio, half dug into the closet and kicking off a shoe in one. His head peers out over the top, knocking against the frame with a yelp. "You got any alcohol?"

"Sorry; too young and not much of a drinker. I've got soft drinks and coffee though."

"We'll both take a coffee, please," Kurapika admonishes, passing his coat towards Leorio, who jumps on one foot to rid himself of a shoe on the other. The sight is comical, causing Yona and Kurapika to snort as she leaves towards the kitchen, where a kitchen hatch in the wall shows the movement of her into the cupboards, another found facing the glass doorway.

In her absence, Kurapika surveys the room; finds a couch and an arm chair folded around a coffee table, a small bookcase besides the doorway covered in small trinkets and items. Along the walls, various framed pictures of sayings and family faces line them, with rugs thrown beneath the furniture. Beside one of the couches, below the armchair, a stack of books sits, one overturned and and up at the spine. The sight of the spine makes his body lurch in horror.

His thumb hooks delicately beneath, picks it from the stack and turns it to read the title - _"the three gods of ole'"_ \- when Gon swings through the doorway. He pants around his excitement, half bent at the waist and grinning. His eyes sweep round, catching the girl through the hatch. "Yona! There's a _rope swing_ outside!"

She laughs through her words, hanging halfway over a table and through the hatch to grin at him. "Yeah! It's been there since I was little, so it's pretty sturdy. You used to play on it alot."

"I can't believe I don't remember that!" The sun frames his body with gentle hands, making the boy look almost ethereal, almost caught in a time-glass of what innocence used to look like. It tugs at Kurapika's chest, fondness welling at his gaze for the spiky-haired child. It is this, this flash of remembrance, that steels Kurapika's nerves, that reminds him they are not here to look around and become invested in the small trinkets and books and rope swings that make up this life.

He disappears back onto the veranda, half-knocking over a plant pot and causing Leorio to huff in exasperation as he falls back into one of the couches. Kurapika's attention returns back to the book, half-flipping through it in interest when a hand taps his arm. Beside him, Yona passes him a coffee, exchanging it for the fairy tales.

She places it, closed, on the book pile. "If I'm not mistaken, that book is about mythological gods?"

"Heh, yeah, though you don't want to say that around the rest of the locals, they'll pitch a fit at you calling their gods _'mythology,'_ " she settles on the edge of the couch beside them, air and books between them all and sips at her drink, a can of soft drink, "it's interesting though, to learn about what your ancestors passed down to you to keep safe."

"Ancestors?" prods Leorio, sitting up in his seat.

Yona nods, fiddling with the drawers and trinkets among the coffee table. "Yup, ancestors. It's nothing special, since more than half the island shares the bloodline, but Mom came from a strict clan or tribe called the _Kanuhix_ , a bunch of God-fearing individuals. Though their ways are old, most of them live on in the islands culture and people, like yearly mass and holidays for kids."

The idea of knowledge, of more to swallow, intrigues Kurapika. His chin lands in his palm, supported by his knee, to peer closely at Yona. He finds freckles, soft-bitten scars and dark circles from lack of sleep; nothing that spells tribe-life or a girl in fear of gods that could rip the heavens wide open. Still, he tilts his head. "Then that would make Gon a -"

"A _Kanuhix,_ just like Isas and me. _And_ most of the island."

"Is that why you wear that clothing?"

A scrap of information to snatch, something to understand. Yona peers down, pressing the wrinkles from her clothing. It pools between her legs, displaying the worn-in knees of her trousers. "Yeah; it was my mom's. Out of respect for her, really. Speaking of which..."

Yona stands swiftly, all thin joy and awkward determination rattling her bones, body swinging out into the mid-day glare over the pinpricks of hills. Her gaze narrows; they must be further away from the house than before. " _Gon!_ Come inside guys; there's some things I gotta show you."

At the response, Yona dips back in and speeds past, delving down the corridor between the kitchen, bathroom and store room and falling into a room on her left. A clatter of feet fill the air as the boys return; already, they are spattered with mud. They tumble into the collection of seats, Killua's feet hanging over one of the arms and head cushioned on Gon's lap, who spills his laughter at a joke into Isas' shoulder blades.

Such a comfortable scene; Leorio can't help but grin over his drink. Behind them, Yona hefts a cardboard box and places it on the floor beside the coffee table, sinking down beside it due to lack of room. It spits up dust, though the insides are lovingly tended. Spiral bound photo albums, collections of baby clothes and shoes litter the skeleton of the box, trinkets slipping as she reaches in and pulls one of the albums out. She opens it carefully, not daring to split the leather cover.

Immediately, Gon recognizes a picture of Ging - a copy of the one back home and of the one he carries in his pocket, half leaning against a motorcycle, a steel rod in hand. Carefully, slowly, Gon unfolds his own and wordlessly, places it beside it. His is creased, the folds turned to cuts and half-blackened by age compared to the preserved and pristine sight of the other in Yona's photo album.

No words are exchanged, but Yona swallows a laugh, smirking at him as she turns to the page to another. Here, Gon has no replication of a picture because the woman is hardly familiar to him. She's half bathed in sunlight, an old tree obscuring the top part of her body. But the wind plays a part in her, dripping a melody across a bronzed bare back and spilling out the hair from her shoulders in loose, browned curls. Her face is unseen, but her smile is evident from the blossoming of her cheeks.

His gaze drifts down, captures the bend of a spine between traditional clothing, a hand half clutched into the grass and - his eyes widen. The other clutches a swollen belly, straining against the fabric of her clothing. The hand half-strays along a little girl's head, curled up against her mother's lap, staring out among the dip of the valley. Her own hair, long brown curls, follow the wind. They both look dipped in a glow.

Unconstrained tenderness litters Yona's smile, fingers dancing lovingly over the picture. She heaves breath into her lungs by the reigns, hiding the wetness of her eyes beneath her hair. "Gon, that's mom."

"Mom..." he mutters, finding himself brushing his fingers against Yona's - when had he moved so close to touch the picture? - and staring intently at the image. He feels something ache in him, a pleasant yearning he'd never really sanded down the edges of, but he also yearns to know. Who had taken the picture, was it Ging? How old had Ging been then? How long would it be until Gon and Isas came into the world to stand by their father?

"Yona?"

"Mm?"

"Is it... _okay,_ if we don't talk about her?" Yona lifts her head at the question, ready to pass one of her own in vague concern, until she _looks_ at him. Until she _sees_ at him. A determined line to his shoulders, a clutching of veins in his head to stop the guilt from finding a way into the air. Beneath the coffee table, she knows his hands are fisted. Behind him, Killua smiles in a small amount of pride for Gon's loyalty.

Yona understands, as much as she can, to see what Gon sees. The loyalty in his heart. The yearn for more. It is a battle she herself had fought in once; whether or not to remain loyal to Ging as a father figure, or to find it in someone else among the village town below. Hers had been finished; Gon's was just beginning.

"Sure," she admonishes, shrugging away the incredulous look of Leorio at them both. She flips another page, displaying half blurry images tucked away for later amusement. A few spaces lack images, to which Yona deposits back the pictures she had uncurled from their weathered skin, slotting them back where they belong. Half way through, Isas points eagerly to one of the pictures. It swells out the harbor they had arrived in, the clothes of a different time and Ging, with one of the twins standing eagerly on his shoulders to look out to sea. Gon hopes it's him.

"That was a few days before Ging left with you; when Mom got _really_ sick."

"Sick?" Leorio perks here, shuffling forwards to turn the picture to face him slightly. Yona nods, jostling herself and grabbing a pillow to sit on, knees numb.

"Mm; Mom got sick for the first time when I was four; it went away for a while and then after she gave birth to Gon and Isas, it came back. When I was seven, that was when it really got her and she, uh, passed," Yona heaves her breath back into her lungs and takes a moment to collect the forgotten, scattered remnants left after her mother's passing. Somehow, she fits a smile onto her face again. " _But,_ Gon doesn't wanna talk about mom, so it's probably best not to at the moment."

Behind her, Leorio gives a firm nod and settles back, crossing his legs to rest a foot on his knee. Kurapika sends him a side-long glance, a crossing of worries in the silent conversation between the two. Leorio nods. Kurapika folds his mouth into a line.

"Yona," the voice comes from Killua, whose found himself upside down among the couch cushions, entirely at home. Even though Gon flaps at him to be more polite, the assassin bundles his arms in a cross, catching his gaze with hers. "Is there anything of Ging's around here that may be of interest to us?"

The question prompts her to tilt her head, expressive eyes billowing with ideas and thoughts. Her lips purse before she suddenly jerks, switches on a light and nods eagerly. "Yeah, there _was_ something...though, it's probably just a dead-end. I'm not sure if it's worth investigating."

"Don't care," remarks the assassin, nodding at her to continue. "What is it?"

"Well, when I was a little girl, I thought it was a, _uh,_ treasure map," her words are half muffled by dust and dirt, head caught in the body of the box to scrape at it's insides. Gon manages to flip Killua around into a normal sitting position by the time she produces a yellowed piece of parchment, passing it to Gon's eager hands. "It's something in the _Kanuhix_ ruins. Probably just something he left behind, but for the life of me, I couldn't decipher the clues."

"That's 'cause it's in Whale Island speech," Kurapika and Gon speak at the same time, eliciting a smile between the two at the shared knowledge. Beside them, Isas leans closer to inspect.

"That's probably why then," she says, standing and dusting off her clothing. She doesn't try to pack away the box, her mother and Ging's legacy all scrambled into one space, and instead scoops up the cups and leftover plates and heads towards the kitchen as the boys cluster around it. She half laughs into her hand when Gon reveals he can only speak Whale island speech, not read it, and receives a smack from Killua. Isas begins to point out pictures to Leorio, who lets him climb into his lap and re-tell all the legends he'd grown in his chest.

When she returns with drinks on a tray, taking her own, Isas' hand digs into her clothing. "Yona, what about sleeping arrangements?"

"We'll deal with that later, but for now," from her pocket, she produces a phone, spinning it between her fingers skillfully. "Who wants to order pizza?"

* * *

Night comes early for them, turns bodies once ravenous with excitement, leaden with sleep. Whilst the three youngest share Isas' room, Leorio and Kurapika take residence in the spare, opposite Isas' and beside Yona's. But Yona doesn't fall into her own bed; instead, she stays up, one of the photo albums open on the kitchen counter, spilling memories and forgotten pieces into her heart.

She brushes over a closeup picture of her mother, half caught as her and Ging had grappled for the camera. There's only a vague image of her collarbone and jaw, reaching up to meet Ging's mouth for a kiss. Though the image is bittersweet; it is still something sweet left behind.

"What are you doing up?"

Now, she has become accustomed to the various questions of the Kurta. "I could ask you that too, Kurapika."

A snort of amusement from his mouth billows through, and she notices that his own tabard is not discarded, unlike hers, swapped for shorts and a long t-shirt in the summer air. He half leans against the wall, rubbing the tiredness from his eyes and watching as she softly closes the photo album as she turns.

"I got invested in that book; the gods one," he remarks, gaze flitted to somewhere else, somewhere she daren't try to reach. But she knows that feeling, that look in his eyes - more often than not, even across the seas or amongst her home, she's been told that her eyes hold it. Whether she is somewhere or with someone, no one seems to know.

"Well, I'm glad. It's quite a bunch of tales, isn't it?"

Kurapika nods, moving from the doorway. "Yona, may I ask you to tell me how Ging met your mother?"

"And what on earth would possess me to share something so intimate with you, Kurapika?" This is where Kurapika first feel his veins grow cold, split with ice at the sudden unfriendliness in her mouth. Though he supposes it's granted, he is still taken aback at the way her mouth turns downwards, her fingers curl into the counter top. But suddenly, the animosity in her rushes out in a breath, shaking away the claws that had seized his bruised heart. "I-I'm sorry. Look, I don't want to talk about her right now out of respect for Gon and-"

"Gon's not here."

"Yeah, I know, but," her head leans back, letting the chocolate hair fall, letting him see the declining rise and fall of her ribcage. Things he doesn't notice, hadn't seen before, suddenly catch his gaze in the faulty, flickering three lights above them. He feels warm, and not from the fire that slowly, starts to go out in the corner of the living room when she lifts herself onto the counter, crossing her legs. "Well, alright then. I don't know why you want to know but-"

"Yes you do."

Softly, her lips twitch with a grin. "The suspicion thing is getting a little old. What happened was, because Ging was an archaeology hunter, he was very interested in re-erecting land marks and historical items. Just so happened, that on the mountain, the _Kanuhix_ had a lot of lovingly preserved ruins," Kurapika joins her on the counter, though he keeps the photo album between them, "Ging took one look at them and his heart was set on restoration. But, the _Kanuhix_ weren't as set on it. They only agreed to let him do it if someone from the clan joined him-"

"Your mother."

"Nope; her brother, our uncle. He died years ago when we were little," she shakes off the pity from Kurapika's gaze, running her hands through the messy curls of her hair, "mom was dead-set against it, and vehemently tried to curse Ging. They only met when he went looking for her, to tell her to stop cursing him to fall into bushes and ditches whenever he walked the mountain path. And, as cliche as it is, the rest is history."

Kurapika chews on this after a brief snort of laughter, along with the information about Ging he had already acquired. The title added up, as well as the passion and stubbornness she had relayed to him of Ging's character. Furthermore, from what he'd already read from her books, as well as seen in the town from the morning, he can conclude that that had been two or three years from her own birth. It makes her two years younger than him, and four older than the youngest three.

"And how did you come across Gon, even though you were unaware he was alive? Also; why did you think he _wasn't_ alive?"

"Our TV is really faulty here and can only really play DVDs and videos, so whenever we go to Cranberry-san's and Cap's, we try to catch whatever fighting sport we can find, usually Heavens Arena ones, since they're both our favourite things to watch. Cap says it's in our blood," she comments, and lets her hand rise from her side, to find the mismatched scars and bruises along her knuckles, over the backs of her wrists. From those, she could tell a million stories that Kurapika had never heard. "One day, I came to pick Isas up after work and he wouldn't stop screaming and yelling that he had a double on the TV. And, as soon as I saw him, half-beaten and bruised and bloody but grinning like a madman, I _knew_ it was Gon. _No one_ smiles like that unless there's a whole lot of fight in their blood."

Kurapika supposed that that wasn't too hard to figure out; despite the small differences, Gon and Isas were almost exactly alike, a mirror of two different island boys. He leans back on his hands, crossing his feet at the ankles. "And why did you not believe he was alive until you saw that television image?"

"Because Ging never came home to tell us different," Yona picks at her nails idly, casting her gaze away from Kurapika's own startled copper one, "whilst he was gone, mom...died, during that time. As kids, we had no clue what to do so we just left her, for...days, maybe even weeks and, well, you know what the body does when it decomposes and how animals react to it."

Kurapika almost can't stomach the story, his features screwing in morbid disgust at the idea. His hands curl into the counter top, though Yona doesn't twitch, doesn't stir where he can see. She's come to terms with the gruesome visage of what had happened to her mothers body, years ago. He half expects her to stop, to beg him of no more questions, but still - she follows the mountain trail home.

"So we ran. Off into the woods; we only survived because both mom and Ging were used to the forest and taught us how to live off of it. For weeks, we stayed there until Isas ate something bad and we were found by the villagers in the forest, people they had only taken us sparingly to meet. From there, Cranberry-san and Cap' took us in and raised us. Not once, do I remember Ging coming home and telling us if Gon had escaped the sickness."

"So you just...came to the conclusion he was dead?"

"Thought Ging was dead too. Might've been better if he had, for all he could do for us; besides, what other conclusion are you going to come to when your home is swept with sickness at seven years old, and your father and little brother don't come back from the sea?"

Bitterness climbs her throat, makes rungs into a ladder from the veins inside. Yona doesn't hold sweetness around Ging's name, only contempt when she remembers the man she'd believed had stolen her little brother, as well as left her mother to die with only her children to mourn her. In one boat trip to Whale Island, Ging had forced his eldest to become a mother with only seven years held in impossibly small hands.

But Yona shakes herself free of the contempt, her peace with her ghosts made and jumps from the counter. Wordlessly, she bundles the photo album into her chest and moves to walk past Kurapika, head hung in thought, before being stopped at the door with her name.

"Yona..."

"Mm?"

He swallows around his words. "May I ask...what your mother's name was, please?"

At the politeness, Yona smiles. "Her full name was Sundayakurra. But, Ging thought it too long so...we called her Sunday. Her name was Sunday."


	6. TO MAUSOLEUM CHILDREN -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ngl, around half this stuff i never actually planned - all the religion/mythology stuff, the box, OMR; that honestly popped into my mind in the days/weeks i spent in a writer's block for this chapter. i was srs stuck on around, idk, four hundred words for like three weeks ? then 1,200 for another month or two ? honestly i crossed the new year with this chapter, save me. by the way, the song used at the end of the chapter isn't mine, it's part of an undertale (cover) song called HOME by adriana figuoeira, which is beautiful btw.
> 
> WARNING: this chapter talks noticeably about religious views, as well as having violent imagery of cancerous/deadly sickness in children. please be advised that this is towards the end of the chapter though.

**_chapter six_ **  
_to mausoleum children_

* * *

 

"Isas."

Knotted saccharine stains his lips wide in a gleeful grin, before it chips away into a confused closing of lips. The boy's head turns, as if hung by rope to his shoulder blade. "Killua?"

"What else do you know about Ging?"

And here is where the pain builds a home in his chest, at the familiarity and the resemblance to Gon's small, unnoticeable traits and mannerisms. But Killua notices, as he always will; the way Isas sits back on his hips, hangs palms clutched together between his parted legs as they lift slightly, leaning back in though with his bottom lip caught like fish netting into the cave of his mouth. Gon doesn't notice, fingers still grasping at pages and memories dusted in forgotten, in nostalgia's mouth.

Though Killua still harbors little trust towards Isas, caught in the downward turn of his mouth at Isas' hesitance, he is still a part of Gon and he shall not ruin this by voicing his concerns. He figures he shouldn't be surprised; Gon was always meant to be more.

Gon traces the pictures like braille as Isas speaks, a world and an arm's length away. "I know there's a few things he left behind other than the map, like some clothes and stuff. There's also a few journals but I'm not sure where they might be."

Killua's arms fold as he sits back in the arm chair, caught in the corner of Isas' room. It's old, patterned with a rich design that reminds him of tapestries, of legends weaved into thread, with a thick smell of vanilla that billows each time he flounders for comfort. Isas says it was their mother's reading chair, removed from the living room, to which Killua immediately took it and Gon moved towards Isas' bed to plough through memories.

"Anything solid, that might help us?"

Wandering eye watches all the twitches and flinches that pull at Isas' skin; how easily he leans into Gon or the way his knees bounce and his eyes never leave Killua's in curious thought. If he hadn't been so accustomed to Gon, Killua would've felt the familiar, disappearing itch to scratch out Isas' unnaturally expressive gaze. Isas' mouth opens before he can swallow it.

"How did you two meet?"

The question stills Killua's viper soul, only for Gon to peer up, to launch into tales of underground caves and exams, eyes caught in that same supernova of exuberance in Killua's stunted absence. And Isas listens, pours into the story with as much attention and curiosity as Gon that Killua is almost starstruck by the twins. Soon, he is simply _there,_ marble boy eavesdropping on tales being told with a small smile on his porcelain features, splintering fondness into the pockets of it.

"And then we had to go and rescue Killua from his family, since he was in solitary confinement for leaving his family, but they're all assasins so it -"

" _Hey!_ Gon, don't tell him I used to be an assassin, you'll make him scared of me!"

" _Ne,_ I'm not scared of you Killua," admonishes Isas, flicking amber gaze towards blue and in that moment, as his mouth splits wide into a grin and his eyes fold closed with the sheer weight of it, Killua's heart thuds. His blood quickens. "You seem really nice!"

it takes a second for a pillow to launch towards the boy, knocking the air out of him. "Idiot."

The three dissolve into laughter, into bubbling over sentiment that fills the room with warmth. It tugs their smiles wide, mapping out pockets of stars and sunlight in their skin with the sheer weight of this, this collection of battered and bruised boys, curled around a dusted photo album. Gon clutches the album to his chest, lovingly, full of a fullness his chest had been devoid of for years.

" _Ne,_ Killua, so we're gonna try the map first, right?"

The question burrows into him, all innocence and knocking curiosity beneath the shallow grave of a tongue. He blinks around his answer, and nods. "Sure, gotta start somewhere. But you need to get a hold of Mito-san so she can translate the text _and_ we need to be able to navigate up the mountain."

"I can help!" Isas shoves a hand high, bubbling with excitement that a sheltered life had gifted him, eager and starving for adventure. Though his smile slips slightly, shuddering with those insecurities held deep in the hollows of him. "Though...I can't make it up the mountain, but I know how to read maps and navigate, since Cap always let me on the boat."

"We'll carry you," Gon remembers the fragility of Isas, the legs weaker than a birds own, and he remembers the way Yona carried him. On her back, holding him up like he was always meant for the air. "It won't be hard, and I don't think either of us will get tired."

Softly, does Killua's heart tug when Gon holds up his little finger, remembering nights he promised to help him sleep when the nightmares made a bed behind his teeth, or when he was trying to amend the broken of him when his soul sought for danger, for risk and sent Killua's own thrumming in a panic. It reminds him of a childhood he'd been robbed, of relationships he could've never had.

But now, as the twins lock fingers and turn to Killua, gesturing for him to thread his own, he can't help but grin and weave himself into this clockwork, as messily and awkwardly as he can. But he fits, he still fits.

"Isas, where's the map then? I didn't see where Yona pulled the box from."

"In her room; she puts all the important stuff on the top shelf of her wardrobe," he says, and immediately, they wake up running. Diving across the hallway, ploughing through the doorway into Yona's room in their eagerness for adventure, delving into the wardrobe and almost knocking the girl over as she sits folding clothing. She blinks around her jump-scare heart, before her mouth splits wide and she turns on her bed, folding her legs.

"And what _exactly_ are you three looking for? If you're playing dress up, I have funnier clothes."

"No, we're gonna try and decode the map," offers Gon, as the other two stand on boxes and try to climb at the wardrobe, gaining mouthfuls of clothing and falling trinkets. Yona laughs when the three turn to her, sheepish and desperate looking.

"Let me try then," she comments, standing beside them and reaching up towards the top shelf. A moment passes as her fingers brush the underside of the shelf, and she lifts her toes to scramble at the shelf, before falling back down. All four deflate in defeat. "I'm too short for my own shelf."

"I got it!" suddenly, Isas is lifted high into the air, over his sister's head with hands under his arms. A gleeful laugh spills his mouth open, before he sets to rummaging through the hidden contents in the gullet of the wardrobe. Behind her, Yona finds Leorio, arms held half bent as he allows Isas to plunder the contents like buried treasure, a fond smile smudging his mouth. Isas comes back empty though, brows furrowed.

"It's not there?"

Isas shakes his head at Gon, and looks to Yona. "Where is it; shouldn't it be in there?"

As she opens her mouth, Leorio injects. "Kurapika has it, he's been trying to decipher the Whale island language." At once, the trio floods into the hallway, demolishing the carpet in their haste to crash into Kurapika paused lightly on the edge of the couch, map splayed out in front of him. The blond laughs, let's Gon tuck himself under his arm to ask fervent questions.

Left behind, Yona and Leorio exchange exasperated and fond smiles in the wake, the tides left behind of the excited group. A beat passes and she turns back to her clothes folding, only to be interrupted by Leorio.

"Yona?"

"Hm?"

"I've been wondering," and awkwardness folds through his arms, how they scratch at his neck and slip into the mouth of a pocket. His eyes follow the sun's tongue, tracing it's pattern through her open bay window to make all the furniture sun bruised. Leorio becomes still for a moment, lets the wind cradle him before his hand falls and a smile pulls over his lips. "Isas' sickness...I've never heard of it which is surprising because I'm a medical student, but that may just be because of regional barriers. Still, I wanted to try and give him a small check up to see -"

"No."

Though Leorio possess' a kind soul, it seems to snap under the weight of a single word. His head pulls up, mirrored shock in his expression at Yona's answer. She's still folding her clothes, deftly tucking and stitching them into perfect squares and placing them into a washing basket by her feet; but her gaze speaks scriptures. Honey comb eyes turn molten, and her mouth is a mere thread compared to the smile she'd worn before whilst her brows crinkle her forehead in sight of her stubbornness, her immediate negative response, has Leorio's perceptions reeling.

"W-What? _Why?_ "

"I don't mean to be rude, Leorio, but," she amends and suddenly, the crater between them closes, the shock subsides as she deposits the final item of clothing into the washing basket and stands. For a moment, she daren't meet her eyes and the wind passes through for a second time, filling her with oxygen and resolve. Peering up, she meets Leorio's gaze, settling the basket against the curve of her hip. "I'm just...not comfortable with the idea. He's been poked and prodded enough. Thank you, though."

When she leaves, Leorio becomes a statue, a living replica of marble. His tongue darts over the slope of his ivory teeth, tasteless, with his brow still knotted. For the third time, the wind cradles him before it pushes him forwards, out of the room to watch as she wanders past Kurapika to the glass doors that open onto the veranda, and out to the side where an airer stands outside to hang the clothes upon.

The elder male doesn't move for a moment, before fingers slip into his hair and he wanders towards the couch, sitting heavily beside Kurapika. The blond spares him a glance, brow raised in silent questioning.

"Well, you were wrong about the free healthcare thing."

"Hm?" Copper gaze returns to the paper, where lexis and glyphs of Whale Island speech sit slanted, with common lettering embellished beneath. A few sentences flow from his fingers, though his teeth sink into his bottom lip, pulling the flesh into pink.

Leorio hangs his head back, arms crossing as he studies the ceiling. "She's not using Gon to get to me for free healthcare; I just asked her if I could give Isas a check up to try and understand at _the least_ and she shut me down," a pout decorates his mouth, pulling the edges of him taunt with slight annoyance. The dark-haired man gives a small whine, brow lowering further with determination.

"Oh," Kurapika leans back, legs crossing as his own gaze looks to his knees, lost in thought. "Well, that changes some things. What are you going to do now then?"

And here is where Leorio is more than the man with a heart to swallow mountains, with hands that healed long before they held a scalpel. A beat passes before he sits up straighter, back a narrow mountain road, with shoulders set like bricks. His eyes frame stonework, masonry in the ebony depths, as he knits his hands together from where the elbows lean against his bent knees.

"Like any doctor, I'm going to determine the root of Isas' sickness," and as if in a promise to himself, Leorio knits both his small fingers along each other, and presses the thumbs together. "Even if the root is Yona herself."

* * *

Evening comes bounding, filling the home with a soft warmness, a buttered atmosphere that turns them all gentle. Forgotten is the friction between Yona and Leorio, at least in these small hours where the world lays itself to sleep. The sounds that fill the room are either pages turning or the clatter of plates as Leorio cleans dishes in the kitchen, leaving Yona and Kurapika to absorb books stolen from the numerous piles that surround the furniture.

"I must admit, I've never heard of your type of religion in my travels," comments Kurapika, half-turning the page to Yona who leans against his shoulder, knees tucked up to hold a fiction book in place. His eyes immediately turn to the scribbled notes that Yona has wrote in common speak, detailing the mythology that shrouds the lineage, and the Yuubian girl feels a swell of pride. He flicks the page, brows furrowing, "I mean no disrespect when I say this, but it's almost...child-like, in it's views."

"That's because we believe it was written by children in the beginning," she comments, removing herself from her perch to lean over his shoulder, fingers knowingly turning to a page and running over a drawing. It's half-dusted and the print has run with spilled liquid, though it clearly depicts a horde of children, small fingers linked like daisy chains, around a small garden budding with life. Kurapika glides his gaze over the image, before turning to look Yona in the eye, copper meeting honey.

"Tell me about it."

The ghost of a smile draws up her mouth, and she slides beside him, dipping careful hands to cradle the spine of the book. Her fingers trace the outline of a small girl, hair weaved with weeds and feathers. "We believe the world started with the birth of children, who the Gods created from stars, therefore children are very revered by the _Kanuhix_ ; things such as bursaries, free schooling, stuff like that for modern-day adoration of them," she lists off the words with a wave of her hand, though her teeth sew themselves into her bottom lip, "we even believe that the three gods themselves were children born from stars once, and so we have a story about them."

The girl looks to Kurapika, half-startled by his gaze. Full of attention and focus, she blinks when she realizes someone is listening to her mumblings. "Our stories dictate that the three gods - the brothers of the moon and stars and the sister of the sun - were all children when they began unfolding the universe," her fingers turn scriptures into bedtime stories, with how she picks out dusted lines of text from the book pages to draw the Kurta's attention, "however, they soon became bored and so, borrowed the tail ends of comets and stars to make threads, and because the stars loved their children so dearly, they allowed them this act of creation. They then thread all the ones they'd made together, making child after child, and put them on earth so they could begin their convergence with one another. It's said the reason why the children _they_ made couldn't stay in the heavens is because they were made by divine-birthed-by-divine, making them half-gods. So, they needed somewhere that was half as beautiful as the heavens and...that's how we came to be. We are the half-generation."

Kurapika nods, looking to the pages of the book and following the same lines Yona had on a young face, pulled wide with a smile and flushed cheeks. The boy has skin the colour of a volcano's dark mouth, with blue paint streaked over his chest and face in an assortment of stars and tail-ends of comets. An assortment of flowers wander through his hair, ebony strands stuck high like thorns. The image almost reminds him of the twins currently treasure-hunting.

He drags his fingers over the picture, pinpointing on the blue arrows and designs. "Is this why you have tattoos of arrows on your skin?" Yona nods, pulling her legs up into a lotus position, leaning forwards on her palms and Kurapika almost laughs at the immediate thought; _what a childish girl._ "What...what were your patron Gods names?"

"I think it..." her words trail as she retrieves the book from Kurapika's hands and pulls it into her lap, flipping mindlessly across the pages. Suddenly, she stops and turns the book to present another picture to Kurapika, surrounded by texts and hand-made notes in a child's script. Her finger points to the woman in the back, her hands leaning palm down on golden light orbs. "Calliope of the blinding dawn," her finger follows to the boy kneeling in front of her, whose fingers lift dirt and flowers grow either side of his head, "Mamoru of the equal earth," finally, her finger turns to the boy sat in front of his brother, making a sort of tower-line, in a position similar to Yona's, who offers stars that seem to fall from his hands, "and Koko, of the worthy night."

The Kurta's hands smooth over the figures, tries to ink their details into memory. Distantly, he thinks of his clan's own mythology, throwing up dirt and dust as he retrieves them in the crook of his hands, remembers how Pairo used to swallow them whole when his mother shared their tales. How many times had Kurapika prayed though, to paltry Gods, to bring at least his parents or that bright child back to him? How long had he spent believing in half-made stories that were only there to put him to sleep?

Kurapika swallows around the bundle of raw nerves, though this time, when he touches Yona's hand to retrieve the book, he doesn't snatch. "I'm curious; do you want Gon to convert to this religion perhaps? I don't particularly mean it in an accusatory sense, mind."

Yona doesn't bristle at his words and instead, folds her fingers around her laced feet, lips pursing in simple-minded thought. Her eyes turn ceiling-ward, falling through her thoughts. "Hm, no," she responds, turning her gaze back to the Kurta's, "I'm not aware of any religions he may already have, so I don't want to impose on him. If he chooses too though, I won't mind teaching him about it."

The conversation lapses into comfortable silence, both resuming the same curled up positions with a few curious questions from Kurapika on the island's lineage to interrupt the silence. Soon, Leorio stumbles in, cradling a sandwich as he leans over Kurapika's shoulder.

"Ooh, that looks cool!"

"Would you get a plate? You're getting crumbs everywhere!" Kurapika brushes his hands down his shirt, glowering distastefully at the taller male. Leorio snorts, chewing loudly next to his ear.

Yona rolls her eyes fondly, watching as he rounds the couch to sit at Yona's socked feet. "You made _another_ sandwich?" Leorio nods crossing a leg over his knee. "I'm kind of scared to find out what crazy concoction it is _this_ time."

"Try it and see."

Yona takes a bite and immediately grimaces, half-running from Leorio's amused laugh when she goes to wash out the taste of pickles, peanut butter and ham. When offered, Kurapika wrinkles his nose, and returns back to his reading, only to be interrupted by a knock at the door. Though the Kurta stands to open it, he's beaten by Yona, who flashes a mischievous grin before answering it.

"Cranberry-san!"

"Hello dear," the short woman wanders through the doorway after Yona releases her from a hug, pressing down the loved wrinkles of her apron. In her arms, multiple dust jackets for clothing hangs like washing, almost pressing down on the small woman. As she goes to lay them over the couch, Leorio swoops under her arms to retrieve them from her, splitting her wide face into a surprised smile. "Oh! Thank you dear, I wasn't aware you boys were still in the house."

"Got nowhere else to go; may as well make ourselves useful here," jokes Leorio, picking a laugh from the older woman's teeth as he disappears to hang up whatever clothing the woman had brought.

Kurapika stands from his seat, allowing the woman to gratefully sit down and finds that she's not alone. Behind her, a large man the colour of wrinkled olive stands, half-bending through the doorway as his size seems to desecrate it. He half-fills the foyer, if only for the fact he bends down to cradle Yona in a large arm as she throws her own around him, knotting her hands awkwardly in the tangles of his low, white ponytail. Cranberry-san seems to pick out Kurapika's startled and agitated gaze, and lays a hand against his arm.

"Oh don't mind him, darling. That's just my brother-in-law, Rom."

A nod follows her words silently whilst he watches him carefully, a life fighting monsters breeding a fighter from the wet of his mouth. However, as the man moves to sit down, Kurapika hears a faint metallic tapping, only finding the source to it when the Yuubian man takes a seat. His legs house metallic prosthetic's, circular blades with a long needle that balances them through. From the handicap and the bright, gap-toothed smile the elder man gives him, Kurapika finally stills in his wasp-buzz skin.

"Kurapika, this is Old man Rom. Old man Rom, this is one of Gon's best friends, Kurapika."

"A pleasure to meet you," says Kurapika, bending at the waist in respect. The older man nods back, cradling a large hand against Yona's back. Leorio wanders in afterwards, loudly announcing himself to the amusement of the other's, and Old man Rom grasps his hands in his, smiling.

Immediately, Yona launches into a conversation, talking endlessly like Yona and the two elders couldn't have been further apart in age and blood. The two are almost half-confused by the idea, when they realize; this is Yona and Isas' family, a whole island full of blood-not-theirs but blood all the same. Something stirs in them, watching the cheerful interaction between the three, something warm and fond.

"- _unfortunately,_ they're in the hills treasure-hunting, so I don't know how long you'll have to wait to give him a check-up and meet Gon."

From behind Yona, Leorio's brow furrows. "Eh?"

Yona jerks a thumb towards Old man Rom. "Old man Rom's Isas' doctor; he gives him discounted weekly check-ups to see how his body reacts to the newest antibiotics."

For a moment, Leorio doesn't understand before a knowing smile pulls over his mouth, realizing why she said no to his earlier requests. However, Leorio is a determined soul, full of too much fire and brimstone to really settle once a decision has been made. He's _going_ to find out more about Isas' sickness, from either Yona or now, Old man Rom.

The small stretch of silence is studded, is snapped in half with the sound of Cranberry-san's hands clapping, drawing the room's attention to her. She stands gracefully from her seat, despite half wobbling when she stands straight. Her hands find the curve of her hips, smiling almost mischievously and Kurapika understands what planted Yona's smile on her mouth.

"Alright boys, Leorio said you two don't have much to do. There's a festival in the next week so in _that_ case," her gaze turns to Kurapika, pinning the blond with a starlit, determined gaze, "you're getting your measurements done."

Despite Kurapika's concerns of "there's no need" and "I can assure you, I'm fine clothing-wise," Cranberry-san makes the boy seem powerless as she half-drags him to the make-shift guest bedroom, dragging her supplies after her which Old man Rom had been carrying. Yona and Leorio wear matching, wicked expressions as they wave to him before the door closes and he succumbs to the fitting.

The three fill the time with brewed drinks and stories, much like the ones Yona had said to Kurapika, when it happens. The comfortable silences cracks, like a bullet through the air, like a needle through Yona's heart, when Killua's body messily spins into the room through the open glass door.

"Yona! We need help!"

Immediately, every edge of the girl is on end, each corner and point standing to attention as she leaps upwards, along with Leorio and Old man Rom. She strides towards Killua, hand outstretched to cradle his snow-dropped hair like she had to her little brothers so many times, past and present, before she stills. "It's Isas."

Instantly, she understands.

Her feet go sprinting, however, to the kitchen, scratching through kitchen drawers and throwing open cupboards until her fingers wrap around a slim, pen-like object. She fiddles with it for a moment, entangling a needle into it's apex and runs to join Killua. He points over the veranda to where the hill turns to a slope and the tree-swing can be seen. Beside it, Gon holds Isas' back up against his chest, fingers interlocked and slows his breathing, tries to teach Isas through movement, just as he had learned all his life. The boy looks frightened, more terrified than ever before, and relief fills his whole body when Yona leaps over the veranda railing, half-grimacing at the way blood coats down all of Isas' chest from his mouth.

She comes skidding to a halt, knees grass-stained as she rips open the epipen with her teeth, lifts up his shirt and stabs the pen through the conjunction of his ribs. A frenzied few moments pass, until sudden breath rushes through Isas and he half turns to spit up a clot of blood into the grass, groaning when Gon begins to run his hand up and down his back in a soothing manner. When finished, Yona holds him up against her chest like Gon had, and in unison, all three siblings begin to breathe in time.

For a moment, no one stirs. No one tries to disturb the shaken siblings and part them, until Cranberry-san places a hand on the small of Old man Rom's back, and the elder begins to move, silently, to retrieve Isas' pained body from Yona's hands. He takes Isas straight to his room, disappearing with the child for a few moments and the group's gaze turns back to Yona and Gon.

She doesn't speak until both are on the veranda, and she lowers herself to the eye-level of both Killua and Gon. Her fingers card through Killua's hair, picking out dirt and dried blood, feeling a static shock run through her hands, whilst she threads her fingers through Gon's own like ribbons, noticing the trails of blood down his shoulders and his hands. "I'm sorry if that scared you two," she says softly, slipping daisy petals through her words to try and ease the blank stares from their eyes. Gon's fingers wrap tighter around hers. "usually, it's not as bad as that and I know, for a first time, it can be quite disturbing. But he's _alright_. He _will_ be."

"Yona...what's this disease?"

The girl winces visibly at the way Gon sounds so empty, how the fear has cut a crater into him. But still, she doesn't let go of his hand. "We call it _Haki,_ " she explains, and immediately, the name spills recognition through the others, "it's named after our god of the afterlife."

The name rocks through the boys, filling them with tidal waves that spill through and over the rocks of them. Gon nods, half-satisfied though there is still a tremor that runs through, still something shakeable in such a solid soul. Yona doesn't try to peel it out of him, and instead, stands and ruffles his hair. "Come on," she says, putting her hand on the place between Killua's shoulders too, to get him to look her in the eye rather than at his feet. "Let's get you two cleaned up."

She begins to walk inside, when there's a rustle, and Gons voice. "Yona?"

"Hm?"

"We found something, in the hills," and when she turns, Gon clutches a box, black and tin and it looks like a small prison. No entry seems to be seen, but Gon offers it like a sacrificial lamb to her waiting hands. "Ging left something similar like this to me, back on Whale Island. We didn't open it because...we don't live here."

Yona's brows furrow, and she can feel a deep ache, an almost-bruise in her chest when she thinks of Ging. Shaking, her fingers grasp the box, feeling the texture of it in her hands and turning it over and over, like a sand glass pouring time. She doesn't realize they've all relocated to the couch until she sets it on the coffee table between them all. She looks to Gon, cutting through all the light to spare her own towards him.

"How do I open it?"

"I got it," says Killua, and the white-haired child drops to his knees. His fingers splay around the box in a half circle, and to the four boys eyes, spills _Nen_ around it's exterior, whilst there is only solid air to Yona and Cranberry-san's eyes. A sudden click fills the silence, and a panel from the box flutters open; the ache becomes tangible here, almost as if she could reach into her chest and pluck it, like an egg from a bird's nest.

She feels she probably can when she hears the sounds.

" _Come, my child. Stay with me. I'll pro-tect you, and your dreams..._ " the voice is soft, filled with buttered warmth and starlight, singing in common speak so everyone can hear the song and lilting on feminine. Despite it's old age, the music box doesn't stutter, nor does it scatter the voice. But something about the voice stabs a chord through Gon's chest, white-hot and searing as it continues, as it sings melodies of willow tree's and straying from a path.

"Yona," Killua's voice cuts through the noise, as the song continues. His eyes are hard, body half bent towards the girl when Gon looks up and - _she's crying._ "Whose the woman singing?"

It takes her a moment to swallow around the memories in her throat. "It's mom."

" _Rest my child, 'neath the tree-ee. Like it's bran-ches, reach, for me..._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about like the month long absence ? where did i go ? well, its exam season here in england so i've been working on that and it sorta guarantees whether or not i continue the school year ? so if you're following this story, updates may be slow for the rest of like june and july, and then summer ill most likely finish this story. anyways, that was justa tiny disclaimer, just in case anyone was wondering.


	7. THEY RATTLE WILD AND FREE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i won't lie, this is mostly a filler chapter to just highlight how yona's character has come to be. this is a bit late and idk if i posted this by accident earlier though so if you notice this, you can just skip it if you feel like it. enjoy !!

_**chapter seven** _  
_they rattle wild and free_

* * *

Cranberry-san leaves with the knowledge that Isas is healing under Old man Rom's careful hands, and there's Tupperware stuffed with food in the fridge. Old man Rom stays however, to refill Isas' medicine as well as conduct his annual check-up on Isas when he wakes up, greeted by Killua and Gon's exuberant relief. They almost knock the boy from his bed, laughing and coughing up the horror story without a hint of fear, as children so often do.

Yona gives the music box a permanent place on the coffee table, often prodding Kurapika to close and reopen it again, so the melody of her late mother's voice fills the air, prompting nostalgia in bursts like perfume. Her fingers tap idly, scratching over the tin surface, to try and find another way in for tangible hands to slip it open, though finds none. So consumed by the return of her mother's voice, she doesn't think to spit up her questions about how only Gon and his friends are able to open it.

"You're rather taken with it, aren't you?"

Half-lulled by the feeling of ghosted fingers in her hair, the smell of perfume, Yona peers from where her head is cushioned by Leorio's jacket on the arm of the chair, knees tucked. "Hm? Oh, yeah. It's just..." she sits her head in her crossed arms, staring almost lovingly at the ugly music box. Kurapika almost wonders, if he ever looked like that when thinking of his own family. "...it's been so  _long._ "

Kurapika smiles, and when the song ends, he closes and opens the box again with his  _Nen_ , releasing the melody.

Meanwhile, down the hallway, Leorio tucks the youngest into their beds, slipping off shoes and socks, pushing back hair to check for temperatures out of anxious habit. Made from the softest heartstrings, Leorio can't seem to part from these two boys for long and ultimately, caught up in their trailblazing, he has found his hands smoothing down the cheek of another with the same fondness he holds for them.

It's terrifying; only a week has been chalked away yet, in that small time, Leorio has found his mind and heart encompassing two more to worry over now, rather than just three. It makes him soft, fills him with a kindness that his usual loud demeanor would swallow, would desecrate in the presence of new people. But now, as he sits gingerly on the edge of Isas' bed, watches the rise and fall of island air in his chest and dusts away a few strands of dark hair, he can't help but smile.

Lost in his reverie, Leorio shakes his head free of indulgent thoughts. His fingers slip under his glasses and wipe the sleep from his gaze, before standing and tucking Isas in further under the blankets. He stills as he goes to turn off the candle-light.

"Le...Leorio?"

"Hm?" turning, Leorio finds Isas sitting up, drawing a half curled fist over his eyes. A yawn splits through his words and immediately, Leorio is placing a gentle hand to his shoulder. " _Shh,_  kid. You should go back to sleep."

But Isas pushes against it, mountain rock beneath palm. "Leorio, can...can I ask you something?"

Sitting on the bed, Leorio's puppeteer hands set to work on smoothing out the sheets and pressing his fingers to Isas' temple, checking for fire. "Uh, sure."

"Are you a doctor?"

Leorio becomes stationary, the space beneath his heart filling with static at the innocent question. However, it scorches him, reminds him of what he's left on the shelf back home for a while in order to support Gon, in order to be there to hold his hand. Leorio smiles, fond, and ruffles Isas' hair.

"Not exactly, but I'm training to be one. Why?"

"Are you here to help me?"

The elder blinks around his uncertainty, before his tongue falls flat on a whispered answer. "Would you like me too?"

The night turns everything softer, the candle-light above casting shadows over the room. Grotesque, twisted, full of the dark from outside but Leorio swears, that what Isas says next, spills starlight through to every corner, the whole room, as if bathed in ichor and falling stars. "Yeah," he confirms, nodding strongly to concrete his point, "Old man Rom can't seem to understand what's wrong with me, and Yona's too scared to go to anyone else. But it stresses her out, because she's so scared and...I don't want her to be scared for me anymore."

His heart almost breaks under the weight of Isas' words, watching the air flow out of the boy. How long had he been carrying this? How long had he waited for someone to scratch out his words, even if it was a once-stranger from across oceans?

The elder smiles, half-blown away by the way this child's heart can hold galaxies. "Yeah, no problem," Leorio stands, slipping his hand into his pockets as the other pushes up his glasses, and a wide grin pulls over his face, "let me get my stuff and I'll give you a check-up right now."

And Leorio gets to work.

The doctor spills himself into the work, meticulously reaching out and searching as he checks Isas' motor functions, his eye movements, the colour of his tongue in the dimly-lit room. His hushes Isas' words whenever his curious mind goes to question, unsure if Yona would suddenly stride in to check on her little brother and discover him breaking what she'd asked of him. It sets a weight in his heart that makes it difficult to breathe around, but still, doctors are persistent creatures.

It takes a long while, but ultimately, Leorio grasps an answer with both hands.

He tucks Isas back into bed with a smile, and leaves the room softly, briefcase full of notes to be made and hypothesis' to explore. As he goes to dip into his own room, place the briefcase under his makeshift bed and retire for the night, a shadow catches his gaze. Down the hall, spilling wide into the living room, Leorio can see Kurapika cradling a blanket, draping it over Yona's shoulders delicately in the warm lamplight glow.

The elder rolls his eyes, tiptoeing down the hallway towards them. Kurapika catches his gaze, giving a nod as he pulls the final corner over her arms and whispers, "they okay? You were in there a while."

The doctor nods, but with a look to Yona's sleeping figure, gestures to the half-open glass doorway to the veranda that spills moonlight and midnight air into the house. With a curious brow raised, Kurapika follows the doctor out onto the veranda and softly, shuts the door closed behind them. Leorio moves to the railing, sitting his elbows on it and looking out towards the town in the valley, where Old man Rom, Cranberry-san and Captain Farley live, where the lights never seem to go out. And for a second, Leorio looks down the cliff face and thinks;  _these two are going to have to move if the mountain begins to crumble._

"Leorio," Kurapika's voice edges on hard, a stark contrast to the wind's whisper and the cicadas call into the forest, "are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm ju - are you wearing sweats?"

Kurapika glances down, his attire of a vest and sweats tied around his waist. He shrugs slightly, flickering his gaze towards the valley. "I suppose, what does that have to do with this?"

Leorio almost smiles at how comfortable he is in this home, surrounded by books and memories and music boxes. He doesn't turn his gaze away, even though it grows fond. "Nothing," he murmurs, and his eyes cast inside, across the sleeping figure of Yona, weaved impossibly small around the music box, and he turns back to the railing, gulping at the city, "she's sweet, isn't she?"

"Mm."

"Think she'll still be sweet when she realizes what I've done?" Leorio slots his chin in his crossed arms, ignoring the way Kurapika pierces his being with his narrowed gaze from behind. The kurta joins him after a moment, crossing his arms and leaning back against the railing. A stagnant beat passes, and Leorio breathes. "I gave Isas that check-up."

Kurapika tilts his head. "Didn't she ask you not to?"

"Yeah."

"Oh Leorio," Kurapika groans, pinching the bridge of his nose in agitation. Out of his mouth, he spills northern air, a whole world falling to pieces in his jaw when he turns and casts his eyes over the valley of never-ending lights. "That impulsiveness of yours is going to get you beaten up one day."

"True," but then something comes alive in him, turns his static into sound and fizzes away all the negativity. The thrill of the chopping block, the end goal in sight, is what keeps him from grasping Kurapika's shoulders and shaking his words into the blond. "But 'Pika," Kurapika's lip turns downwards, a spiral of annoyance at the nickname, "I  _found_  it."

"Found what?"

"I understand Isas' sickness," his hands card through his hair, untangles the bedtime knots and snags with a wild, indulgent grin on his face. His body seems to rattle with the discovery, to full of the night air to come down. "U-Usually, it'd take a more experienced doctor to determine the root phenomenon, as well as having to conduct more microscopic tests bu -"

"Leorio," and as always, Kurapika's voice brings the doctor home. It silences the currents in his chest and lets the breeze through open windows. And the look on Kurapika's face, where he'd usually be met by stone, softens to pride in him, becomes warm and butterfly filled with the faint pluck of a smile on his mouth. "You can  _cure_  Isas?"

Leorio nods and Kurapika can hardly hold back the proud smile, the edges splitting his mouth wide and splintering joy through them.  _This'll be good,_  he believes,  _for Gon._  For his -  _their_  - family to continue and to never have to learn the feeling of Death's hands on the jaw, down the arm and weaving itself through your fingers like permanent rings. The kurta lowers his head, trying to hide the smile under a curtain of gold.

He peers up, laces his smile smaller for a moment as a realization comes to mind. "You do realize you'll have to tell her, or at least to Old man Rom and she'll find out?"

"Yeah; you think I can convince the old man to just... _not_  tell her?" a sheepish look crosses his bronzed features, folding into a wince at the Kurta's shaking head. But his gaze turns over the blond's head, and his expression turns white, shoulders caving in on themselves like a mountain slide has rattled his body. Kurapika blinks, and turns.

Yona, half awake and standing halfway out of the glass door, blanket wrapped around her shoulders, stares at the two. But her expression spells danger; her brow is lowered, her eyes sharp and feeling like alarm bells in the air. The girl stands fully outside and, with a glance indoors, shuts the glass door again.

Leorio grimaces. "Yona..."

"I  _asked_  you nicely. And you _still_  did it." Despite her hard expression, the way she tries to mold the earth into her posture, Yona's voice quivers. Full of tremors and earthquakes, Leorio and Kurapika watch in morbid fascination as she blinks away the fear, the frustration and tries to seem more than the child that had to grow up far to soon.

"I know,  _I know,_  but," Leorio steps forwards, wincing at the way she almost stumbles back into the glass door when he comes close, as if crossing enemy lines. Behind him, Kurapika grasps the back of his shirt between his index finger and thumb, pulling him back from where Yona looks like a cornered animal - all teeth, all fight. "Yona, I understand his sickness. It's so  _simple;_  and -"

"We _know_  what his sickness is, Leorio, and how to combat it."

Static fills the air, Leorio's expression turning blank. " _Eh?_ "

For a moment, Yona doesn't look like the woman that brought up a child - rather, she  _looks_  like the child. Borrowed clothes to big for her frame, bed hair and a blanket wrapped around her shoulders like it's the only armor she has. But as she threads her fingers through her hair, turns her head sideways to glance down the mountain road through the forest, they catch it - the earthquake in her hands, the scratched-in crows feet by her eyes. The way her shoulders droop with weight. How easily she sighs.

For a moment, Leorio wants to apologize. For a moment, he wants to hug her and push away the nightmares like he'd done for Gon and Killua when the nights became to hard, but Kurapika has a hold on him, keeps him rooted to where he can't make a mess - even well-intentioned - if he steps to close. Despite his healing hands, Leorio puts them in his pockets.

Yona turns back, collecting herself once again. "I know it's a simple sickness, but I've only ever had Old man Rom check him over because he gives a discount, and he helped bring us up, along with the rest of the island. Isas is practically his  _child;_  that's why I trust him;  _only_  him," her hands run over her head, pushing away the stray strands and flattening them against her head by running them down to her shoulders. The blanket half falls, spilling the cold into her. "We don't have the money for the proper medicine he needs, so we can only combat whatever is the cheapest. In this case, it's the asthmatic reaction."

"I don't understand," says Kurapika, arms folding. "Shouldn't medicine be used to fight against all pathogens that are harmful to the body; besides, from those stories you told me, shouldn't children also get free healthcare no matter their sickness?"

"Mm, yes, but this area of Jappon is poor; in fact, it costs almost two billion jenny for a simple check up an -"

Leorio suddenly bursts, the seams coming apart just as Kurapika eyes widen in slight shock. "ALMOST TWO BILLION JENNY!?" Both Kurapika and Yona shush him, and Leorio settles, aware of the sleeping children deep inside the home. He turns his voice into a whisper, "why in  _the hell_  does it cost that much just for a damn look over?"

"Probably because there's such a lack of doctors in this region; I've only ever met a number of three my whole life," she holds up three fingers, before folding them back into her hand and fisting her blanket back around her shoulders again. The brunette peers at her feet, before sighing and looking Leorio in the eye. " _Speaking_  of which, Leorio, I'll pay you whenever I get the chance but right -"

"What are you talking about?"

Yona blinks. "What are  _you_  talking about?"

An ache pulls through between them, before Kurapika's expression turns fondly exasperated and Leorio begins to laugh, bend in half from the weight of it. tears fill his eyes with the notion, the realization she hadn't even come to about Leorio. Though the doctor can hardly blame her for her immediate reaction; they're just glad that their suspicions were entirely wiped away.

However, Yona doesn't understand and immediately bristles, glaring at the doctor vehemently whilst splintering her gaze to Kurapika, who merely shrugs. "What the heck is so funny? Also, can you quieten down a bit please," Yona places her hands out, palms down, in front of Leorio as he begins to choke back his laughter. Suddenly though, Leorio grasps her hands in his, smiling.

"Yona -  _oh my god_  - I'm a free doctor."

"Ne? What does that mean?"

Yona looks to Kurapika, whose fingers pull the corner of her blanket back up over her shoulder for her. The blond smiles warmly, causing a soft blush to blossom on Yona's cheeks. "That means that Leorio works for free; he takes no money for medicine or surgery or anything of that kind. He can get you the medicine and all the aftercare Isas will need to beat this."

The Yuubian girl doesn't react for a moment, silence spilling throughout her. She just stares at Kurapika, half believing him to be lying and the other half believing she's asleep, dreaming up her most frivolous and far-fetched daydreams. But here, she can feel the wind, can hear the telltale creak of the wood beneath her socked feet. Knows that if she shifts her weight closer to Kurapika, the board will let out an unholy groan.

It's almost surreal, suspended from her own body with the knowledge that after all these years, Isas won't need to carry around a bottle of liquid hope all the time.

She doesn't realize she's crying until she blinks, honeycomb eyes flushed and turning almost a watery amber, and looks to Leorio. His expression turns softer now, full of fondness. "You...you can cure him?"

And Leorio can see Gon in her, here, the way hope bundles in her bones, and how it shakes through all her atoms. There's no question of her relation to Gon now; there's no  _Nen_  power in her, no cross-hatched stories and finally, no lies on her tongue. So Leorio nods, and holds up his small finger in the heaviest promise he can give.

" _Definitely._ "

But Yona doesn't thread her small finger around Leorio's, doesn't accept the promise and instead, falls into his chest, wrapping her arms around his middle, like a small child reaching for an adult. She begins to shake, hiding her tears in the elder's chest as well as half hearing her muffled ' _thank you_ 's over and over. Half shocked, Leorio smiles and winds his hand around the back of her head, trying to soothe the cries as well as tossing a pleased smile to Kurapika, who rolls his eyes affectionately.

Yona pulls back, rubbing a fist over her eyes and takes a deep breath before a smile explodes on her face, bleeding sunlight in the break of midnight. She begins to wander back into the house, though never splinters her gaze from the two boys. "Do...Do you guys want something, like a drink or something to eat? Anything; you can have  _anything,_  I mean it."

"Yona, it's fine, you don't have too -"

"No, no, I do," she assures to Kurapika, blinking away the fresh tears that go to spill down her cheeks, and smudge away the warmth that sits in them. A faint blush settles on Kurapika's cheeks when Yona smiles at him, all wayward warmth that suddenly, can't be encased in her body. She looks to Leorio, encouraging. "I have to, please.  _Please._ "

Half-indulging her, Leorio gives in, unable to resist. "I'll have one of those cookies you've been hiding from Killua and Isas."

Yona nods and slips inside, though a moment later, a soft clatter fills the air and a pained yelp from her as she heads towards the kitchen, having stubbed her toe on one of the armchairs. The sight makes the two laugh, before they spread their eyes out over the valley. Even through all that, not one single light has gone out.

Kurapika leans on the railing, comparing the stars to the city's lights. "Now all that's left is to see if Gon really wants that blood test or not."

"Mm, but is there really any doubt left?"

Kurapika looks over his shoulder, through the glass doors to where he can see Yona, jumping high to get the cookies on the shelf far above her head, before her posture deflates and she resigns to grabbing a stool to reach it. The blond shakes his head tenderly, looking back to the valley. "Not in the slightest."


End file.
